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Retail Fraud on the Rise
prostoalex writes "They buy the merchandise, print their own receipts, and return it. They buy two watches - an expensive one and inexpensive one, and then swap them and return the one with the highest price. Business Week talks about retail scams, and how merchants are trying to avoid them without losing the customer service battle. They are fighting against surprisingly sophisticated techniques, too." From the article: "Q: What role do auction Web sites play in all this? A: Retailers have stopped giving cash back in many different cases. Instead, they do refunds in the form of gift cards or store credits or store value cards. If a crook can get enough of those, he might sell $2,500 worth of gift cards for $2,000 online. It's a benefit for the buyer, who gets a discount and will use those gift cards. And the person who has manipulated the return-scam system has a way to [make money]. But the retailers lose out. "
I feel that it's actually very disgusting that people do this. It can ruin it for everyone by retailers getting burned by activities such as this and deciding not to accept returns or similar decisions. I think it's just a matter of time before many companies decide to allow exchanges only and prohibit returns. If they do adopt the policy of no returns and exchanges only, it should be explicitly signed at the point of sale so that everyone knows before they buy that they can exchange only and not return the products. Where are these peoples' moral compass?
There's no place like localhost
Do you think anyone will mistake my Glitter DVD for any of the three Lord of the Rings DVDs? I swear I don't have a Glitter DVD...really.
Do what the Saudis do ... cut their hands off when they're caught.
These crimes have the potential to seriously affect the service provided to genuine customers through store's return policies. Many people will use retailers who are known to be return friendly when buying goods they are unsure of so as to gain from that store's returns policy and be able to return the product if it does not meet their requirements. If returns policies are widely shaken up, it could be the end for easy customer returns, and the ability to legitimately return goods that do not fit your needs.
Business Voyeur
Its intresting to read about technologies involvement in stealing, and a lite overview of how these people do it. Though in the end its the same old story with a slightly new twist. As with everything the criminals and cops(or "good guys") are playing a game of constant evolution
I think the net of this article is that if you are Target Inc and track each recipt in a giant database - you'll be less likely to get ripped off.
snowulf.com
This has been going on for a long, long time. I've heard of this as long as they've been giving out gift cards for the store. Especially since Wal-Mart likes to do it for returns, and isn't too picky about if the product you're returning is actually yours or not....
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
They need better item tracking through means that can't easily be forged. Such as, embedded serial numbers of various types or simply more competent employees to work the returns counter.
Many people before me have told stories of how they would fix their post-warranty, PS2 by buying a new one from Walmart, swapping it with their broken one, returning it, and claiming that it was broken and would not want a new one. This was less common with the PSP since the dead pixels came in within the warranty period. Maybe Sony should stop outsourcing the important technological work so they can provide quality hardware?
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I had a friend that went and bought a Radeon 9800 XT when they were 450 bucks or around there. He then took it home and put his Geforce 4 MX440 back in the box and brought it back saying that "it was giving him Lines across the screen" They took it back and he got his 450 bucks back... Free upgrade for him....
I was so disgusted with him that i just stopped all contact with him. As soon as I heard that he did this (about 3 weeks after he did it) I went and reported him to the retail store he did it to. He was under 18 so he only got a slap on the wrist and ended up paying for it.
It just anoyed me that people do this. I run into it plenty of times in my line of work (Pro Audio) where people will buy speakers, you tell them how to set the settings, or better yet you set it up for them. Yet 2 days later they come in with Burned up Voice Coils and complaining that they were the WORST speakers they've ever bought, how they know more than me about pro audio and that it wasn't them. Yet by looking at the speaker you can tell it was overdriven.... Then go look at their equipment settings and they are not what you told them/set up for them. Yet they try and tell you they NEED a free replacement because these were obviously defective.... Sorry No dice. I don't play that game.
Human population
Polution
Poverty
Crime
Taxes
Interest Rates
Cost of living
Price of fuel
Retail prices
and now retail fraud
I wonder if any of them are connected in some way? Hmmmm...
Thank you for the 'HOWTO' article.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
the subway sandwich franchise has recently stopped doing the sub club cards with the lil stamp things because people have been stealing the stamps from stores, putting them on eBay, or distributing the stamps to friends. it was almost to the point of that only stamps generated from that store were accepted there only, or only about 1 card (8 stamps) was the max accepted at one time, because you'd have people come in with 4 or 5 cards with consecutive numbers, which means someone had to buy atleast 32 6" subs to get 4 cards.
what's subway's new idea? smart cards. they'll swipe a card that keeps track. i keep telling the owner i know that there will be fradulent smart cards because someone's gonna crack the system on the card.
it's almost to the point where you can only accept cash these days, but you gotta check that with a money pen or check it to be legit. you got stolen checks, fake checks, counterfiet money, everything.. what's the world coming to?
lameness filter thwarted.
Went shopping at the local hardware store. They have two different wattages of light bulbs in a special availability (More difficult to break). We looked at the bulbs, and someone had switched them, taking the larger wattage and leaving the smaller, and paying for the smaller wattage using it's box. HOWEVER; they never bothered to look at the price... The price for all of this type of light bulb, without regard to wattage is the same.
anyone buying a giftcar with a "value" online is a complete and utter moron.
come on, you are going to believe that schmuck that "says" that thay have $2500.00 worth of cards? either idiots or morons would buy them from the thief... Because the theif will empty them before sending them. and now the buyer has spent $2000.00 for a pile of worthless plastic.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is an issue of verification and item identity.
Possible solutions? How about identity tools such as image recognition, holographic barcodes on the item itself, RFID, etched serial numbers, etc.
and Sumerian and Roman times.
Fake gold, fake clothing, fake jewels.
it's just that the market is bigger and authentication is harder and harder.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Nordstrom gives every single item you buy an individual barcode and they scan it and assign it to that, to you(they need your information when you make a purchase there), and to the person who sold it to you(for comission purposes and customer service purposes). I think that's a good idea. But their profit margins are high enough for that. But WalMart and Target's just aren't, but may be something they'll have to do, at least on items over a certain percentage.
I wonder if Comp USA ever found out that I returned a P-P-P-Powerbook!!!
Oh, right. Substitute retail theft for downloading above and you'd get what was actually on Slashdot. Suddenly it's wrong when somebody's stealing from a store, but not when they're downloading it against the wishes of the author.
According to the Nov 2002 National Retail Security Survey, almost 50% of all theft was committed by employees, not consumers.
t y-crime-news0024.htm
http://jrrobertssecurity.com/security-news/securi
Instead of going to all that trouble and expense, why not just discount the sandwiches and do away with cards all together. A reasonable price for goods and no BS cards or rebates inbetween.
Ooh, theres an idea.
The solution:
All Retailers would raise all prices 30-50% and offer a 30-50% discount to those who subject themselves to a consumer report.
The buyer would be subjected to a rate-of-return report tied to a DL number. The DL number would be cross checked in the state database to ensure it is valid.
If they have a history of returning too many items, they would not qualify for the discount.
Think of it like "points" on your driving record.
Downside: Mo anonymous transactions would qualify for the discount.
competent employees to work the returns counter
GASP!!! No shit? I think that is a problem more widespread than just retail...
No I didnt spell check this post...
The internet is letting scammers really go into overdrive- every trick that's ever been thought of is out there free for the taking, so they can help each other get away with it. Every single time a legitimate person makes an assumption, there will be someone out there trying to defy that assumption for personal gain.
The end result, of course, is going to be that everything gets verified at every stage of the process. This is just a pain in the ass for normal customers not trying to get away with anything, but it seems to be an inevitable consequence of the information economy- it's so easy to change or hide information that the retailer cannot afford to take their virtual eyes off it even for a moment; if they do, they have to assume it's tainted and end the transaction. Thanks, human nature.
I went to Future Shop last week to help a friend pick out a printer. After we grabbed the printer and brought it to the checkout, we noticed the barcode was missing. Turns out it was an open box return and whoever had returned it had cashed in the $50 rebate then returned the printer.
I really can't understand how people can justify this to themselves.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
look at the reviews for the Canon Powershot S1. there are gobs of complaints about how canon will not warrenty repair the camera. as someone that deals with canon repair regularly, 100% of warrenty rejections are because of customer abuse. Water damage is the #1 attempt at a warrenty repair on canon cameras.
a friend of mine that works at a photo shop refuses to do anything but pack up a customers camera and ship it to canon for a fee. the customer signs a paper that states that they will be charged up to 2X full retail value if they try to ship an item that they damaged in for warrenty repair. it usually stops 30% of the returns as he makes them read that line.
retail fraud has been around ever cince retail existed, it's simply being updated for today. nothing new.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
(Self-disclosure: I only did it once, as a "proof-of-concept" test!)
Say I buy something (the last item I "returned" that way was a router): it works for a while, then quit working. When it happens before the usual 15 days return-without-questions-asked period, I usually go get another of the same item, swap with the bad one and return it the same day.
Why do I do that? you might think I'm a crook or something. Well, I'm tired of being shafted with some store's "10% restocking fee" (which is utter bullshit), or the incredibly ingenious ways of selling me stuff that never works right in the first place, then refusing to admit it's shit, or waiting for-bloody-ever for the thing to be fixed under warranty.
Some stores shaft me, I shaft them back. It's only fair. I don't do that with all stores, but CompUSA, Fry's and others, I have no qualms. Screw them.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I know a guy who bought a $3000 projector for his wedding reception pictures and the returned it the day after. He's lucky I wasn't there, or I would have made sure the unit was non-returnable.
It's always the few scumbag 1% who wreck things for the rest of us.
Reminds me of my time in the Air Force and my wife worked in customer service at the base exchange (military version of Target). People would bring stuff in they obviously bought at a store in town and demand a refund. The manager would give it to them just to shut them up and get them out.
GIGOwiz
What if this wasn't a rhetorical question?
I hope it's not a cop out for companies to abuse their legitimate customers. Their are plenty of times when retail companies have been known to scam the regular customer through false adveriting or pricing schemes and we don't really have many ways to fight back other than a report to the Better Business Bureau.
Then again... Maybe I'm just bitter about what Sprint did to my phone bill one time and refused to credit anything back.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Limit the number of returns a single person can make as a percentage of total purachases or up to "N" returns until the person reaches critical mass. If they don't like it shop somewhere else.
You can fight with technology, but this is really a social problem. Technology can never totally solve such a thing. At some point you have to just give up and admit that a certain percentage of people are out there having fun cheating the system and there's not a damned thing you can do about it except plan ahead for it.
I wonder which is cheaper... to invest millions in anti-theft technologies, advanced databases, embedded serial numbers, RFID, etc., or just take the tiny loss each quarter due to cheaters and have a Walmart-style greeter hand out anti-theft flyers with attached coupons at the door or something.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Embed the receipt in a chip inside the product. Check that receipt on returns. Printed receipts become info only. Crooks might try to alter the data stored on that chip, but that could be curtailed if the chip was programmed to be written to only once and to wipe data if a second attempt took place.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I fully believe that what these people are doing is stealing. Personally, I think that people ought just to buy a whole lot less stuff, but even so, it makes it worse for all of us when this stuff happens.
Now, will people say the same about copying cd's of music? I won't. I know, it's a contradiction, but I just don't buy music anymore unless I'm buying it alog with others who will make copies can keep them. Example: I copied Ben Folds' album. I would give him five bucks for it (I figure that's a fair price for an album). But I can't give him five bucks unless I mail it to him.
On the other hand, a small artist like Karen Savoca (a folk artist from Central New York) gets my money every time she releases a cd. She sells the discs at performances and through her web site. Does she make a fortune? No. But it works.
So, the article is about theft. What about music and movie theft? I'm against the first, but I'm okay with the latter. I imagine I'm not the only one.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Sweet, you do sucky sucky?
I bought a new one at walmart, pulled my 120GB HDD and modchip and modified case lid off of my borked xbox and put them in the new one, boxed up the broken one and returned it, broken seals and all.
I don't think walmart is going to go bankrupt because I did that. And besides, MS should have fixed their damn product or sent me a replacement dvd drive. I wouldn't do this to earn money, nor to dupe the store, I did it to replace my shitty xbox.
www.madeofwinandawesome.com
Okay, let's go back to the beginning of the story... how, exactly, do you commit this fraudulent act? You say I can.. I mean...heh heh.. one could possibly make money from defrauding a store?
No. Say it isn't so.
Who the hell narcs on a friend?You're the type of person who would tell on friends in gradeschool and the teacher would say "Noone likes a tattle tell, little johnny". The same applys here.
And an above poster wanted to know where the moral compass is today. It just dosen't apply to criminals, it applys to the narcs too. If it's none of your business, stay out of it. Unless dude was sleeping with your girlfriend, then by all means narc it up. Or not. Not at all.
Do people take pride in being cop-narcs nowadays or what? If it was a murder I could see, if it was you just being a jealous nerd that he got a card for free and you were JUST SO DISGUSTED THINK OF THE CHILDREN that you had to be a cop narc about it and destroy a friendship someone should knock your teeth out of the back of your head.
Good day sir.
As soon as I heard that he did this (about 3 weeks after he did it) I went and reported him to the retail store he did it to
You didn't try talking to him first? No offense, actually, I take that back, I mean a lot of offense, but you were a total dick of a friend. What kind of person potentially fucks up a kid's life and permanent record without at least trying to get him straightened out first? I bet you're the kind of douchebag who thinks all druggies should just be shot instead of treated.
The retailers have average products, and are having financial troubble - so they are trying to blame the customer. All the other stuff is just excuses.
Sure theres a con or two, but it seems to me that everytime a retailer starts to get "tough" on the customer, it's usually not long before they go out of business.
The whole economy is in a really crappy situation right now, and the mid-term outlook is the worst in over 200 years, so I wouldn't be supprised at all to see a lot of retailers go out of business all together.
I had a friend that did that. Not my friend anymor
[...]
I was so disgusted with him that i just stopped all contact with him. As soon as I heard that he did this (about 3 weeks after he did it) I went and reported him to the retail store he did it to. He was under 18 so he only got a slap on the wrist and ended up paying for it.
Some friend you are. I could see you turning him in for murder, but jeez dude it's just a video card. Retailers do the same thing to shoppers. Just go to Fry's, half their shit is used/defective and there's no sticker to warn the customer. I just see what your friend did as karma biting the store's ass. Too bad you'd rather be a corporate rat.
It is for your own good and it is for the children, now shutup and march consumer...
It just anoyed me that people do this. I run into it plenty of times in my line of work (Pro Audio) where people will buy speakers, you tell them how to set the settings, or better yet you set it up for them. Yet 2 days later they come in with Burned up Voice Coils and complaining that they were the WORST speakers they've ever bought, how they know more than me about pro audio and that it wasn't them. Yet by looking at the speaker you can tell it was overdriven.... Then go look at their equipment settings and they are not what you told them/set up for them. Yet they try and tell you they NEED a free replacement because these were obviously defective.... Sorry No dice. I don't play that game. Wow. You must work at Radioshack.
When it comes to software in Australia, you just can't return it anyway.
This is where Channel BT's preview programs help.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
*refers back to article that says that a certain percentage of surveys are made up*..
Why did they put out a survey that said that surveys are made up?
First, you shouldn't be selling someone a speakerset that isn't matched to the power of their amplification. Sounds like you are the "pro" about your audio.
Second, how you set the settings on someone's stereo is irrelevant. Sound is subjective. Your personal preferences are not right. They're just your opinion. In this situation where there is a customer buying a product and paying for an installation service, the only opinion that matters at all is the customer.
It's called "personal responsibility."
You understand what that is, don't you?
Good for you!
And why do you use an 'r' in hearts but an 'll' in velly? Could it be because you aren't a hot lil Asian chick? And perhaps have never even seen a hot lil Asian chick live? Perhaps you won't love me long time and only sucky-sucky because you actually have dangly bits?
Perhaps you are actually a fat white geek living in his mother's basement fantasizing about hot lil Asian chicks?
They need better item tracking through means that can't easily be forged. Such as, embedded serial numbers
Yes, so that when you buy a gallon of lighter fluid that purchase is stored in a database. Then when you buy a bag of fertilizer, that purchase goes into a database, too. Then the FBI decides to go hunting and says, "Hey Wal-Mart! Give us a list of everybody who's bought fertalizer and lighter fluid!" and under the Patriot Act they must hand it over and are legally bound not to tell anyone that they did.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I once bought a wireless router from Fry's. Instead of a router, I found just a wireless extension unit in the box. When I went to return it, they accused me of switching the units on them!!! I will get my money back even if I have to go low enough to scam the damn store.
Well, seeing as shoplifting and theft costs american businesses ~11 billion dollars in a year... Im going to have to say investing millions in anti-theft technologies is a pretty good return on the investment.
(Number an average of some statistics I found, ranging between 9 billion and 35 billion.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
Yeppers. I heard about some folks doing a scam a couple of years back... Target ran a nationwide ad for a toy item and screwed up the pricing (normal $50, ad said $25) but decided to honor it. Some folks went out and bought them, then cruised down the street to WM and returned them for MSRP (because thats what the WM scanner rang up). Not having receipts, WM would only give them WM store credit (which I suppose they used to buy groceries).
IMHO, the best way for stores to slow down these type of scams is to impose a restocking charge on all returns (esp those over a minimal amount, say $10). The customers will hate it, but it would take some of the profit out of the scam. And profit is what the scam is all about.
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
Many years ago when I was in school I knew a guy that purchased a portable video game system before he went on vacation with his family (a Lynx, I believe,) and then took it back to the store for a refund when he got back.
It shouldn't be that surprising that today he's got the biggest stack of pirated video games of anyone I know.
He's the sort of guy that cares deeply about the video game industry, just not enough to give them his money.
-- dR.fuZZo
I don't condone stealing, but seriously it goes both ways. Consumers get constantly burned by mail in rebates.
Why not do away with rebates and instead discount the actual prices? Because the asshole manufacturers are hoping the customer looses the rebates or never bothers. Same thing with the sandwich cards.
As TFA states, it's easy to prevent much of the problem by tracking receipts. Large retailers like Nordstrom, Macy's, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Target all put code numbers on their receipts to prevent an item from being returned multiple times. I'm not sure how you prevent someone from substituting similar but inferior products on returns.
signature pending slashdot approval
While the case of buying a CD copying all the data and returning it, is stealing because there is an expense to someone else. Because when you buy the CD and Return it you are first taking the expense of the store the catalog, display, and handle the CD, then after you return it they will need to repackage it, put security tags back in, reenter it in innovatory. And resell it at discounted price, because it is considered pre used. If you bought a CD and ripped it and distributed it on the internet then you are in validation of copyright infringement. Steeling has a real cost to the victim, while copyright infringement has a potential loss in sales from the victim.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Below chronicles the adventures of an employee I used to work with at a company I wish not to name. The company made Video Game products. We'll call the employee BT.
BT was employed in the department of the company that would test our products with various PC games. PC game manufacturers would send free games to test to make sure they worked with our brand of controllers, gamepads, etc. BT was basically the one and only guy to handle receiving these games. Most of the time we didn't care if they worked or not, we'd just get tons of games for free, and they started to accumulate behind BT.
One day he got the idea to take these shrinkwrapped games back to the local Best Buy for store credit. He would then take the store credit and buy stuff he wanted, or stuff to sell on eBay. Best Buy's return policy said if you didn't have a receipt, all you needed was your ID to return the product for store credit. BT started going to Best Buy daily returning 1, or 2 games at a time. He'd travel to various Best Buys within the area.
It was working so well, BT ran out of games to take back. You'd think he would have stopped, but I guess greed is just a too powerful force. BT started taking items from the Demo warehouse (a little local warehouse that had 10-20 items of each of the products we manufactured, controllers, memory cards for consoles, basically video game accessories). The policy at the company was it was okay to go back and take 1 or 2 things once in a while, even to take home to keep for personal use.
However BT started taking 3, 4, 5 things at a time, and took them to Best Buy to return as well. Eventually Best Buy caught on, and he had to get his wife, and close friends to go return things for him for a cut of the store credit.
When BT finally left the company, he had accumulated over 5,000 dollars worth of Best Buy store credit. He walked in, bought a laptop and a desktop computer and ended his career.
After that, half the staff of the company started doing the "Best Buy Trick", just on a much smaller scale..
All the major stores will lie to sell extended warranties. Had one guy said that i could use the warranty as a free trade up, which was a complete lie. They always hit you up right at the check out line in order to rush you and so you don't read the actual agreement. I made it a point not to shop at bestbuy unless its too purchase newly released dvds which they usually sell at a loss or if they make a price mistake.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I will get my money back even if I have to go low enough to scam the damn store.
Victim of corporate fraud, owner of a non-existent wireless router, and I will get my vengeance, in this life or the next! *shakes fist at sky*
After we grabbed the printer and brought it to the checkout, we noticed the barcode was missing. Turns out it was an open box return and whoever had returned it had cashed in the $50 rebate then returned the printer.
Why in the world did the store accept this box for return if it didn't have the UPC code? It's equally bad that they restocked this item with the hole in the box as well.I hope you at least got a discount, since the printer was obviously not new.
still pay employees minimum wage to work the returns counter. A higher quality employee will notice that someone is trying to foist off an ISA soundcard as a top of the line video card, even if the scammers paperwork is flawless.
I actually did see a USED CD-R shrink-wrapped, and placed on the returned items cart for sale, at Microcenter once.
it's a sliding scale, the retailer can hire higher quality employees and provide more training, and stop more fraud, but pay more in salaries...they've put more effort into finding exactly where these costs meet, than any of us armchair critics.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
They need better item tracking through means that can't easily be forged. Such as, embedded serial numbers of various types or simply more competent employees to work the returns counter.
I noticed ordering stuff from newegg my rescript reflects not only the model number but the serial of the product i'm buying. Very smart and helped me establish in a few cases where I bought something, or rather if I bought it from newegg or not. And I imagine could be used in a retail store situation to help prevent bogus returns.
In the case of spendy watches, most have something resembling a serial number embedded on them. In the case of my gucci the serial is inside the rear cover.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
You're comparing two numbers that can't be directly compared. That's around $11B for the entire industry. Each company is/will spend millions on anti-theft devices individually. That would also probably total in the billions of dollars across the industry.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
what you did is MUCH worse.
How exactly is it worse? The friend committed fraud and the poster did not agree with fraud so he turned him in. I would like to hear your explanation for this though.
Every post I make begins with the assumption P=~P.
Also, they track their sales well enough that if the warranty is determined void or the product return/refund is refused, ALL stores in the chain know about it. It's common for people to try fraud at multiple locations if they can't get it to work at one.
How serious of a crime must it be before you would report a friend? Would you turn in a friend who was a rapist? A child molester? A murderer? No? Then you are a horrible person.
Would you turn in a friend if he stole a 50 cent candy bar? A 500,000 check in an insurance scam? No then yes? At what point would you turn him in? At what monetary amount?
What you fail to realize, my ignorant, pinheaded amoral slug is that this "friend" was stealing from his friends unless they never purchased anything from that store. Do you think the store will eat the loss or pass it along to the customers?
The industry term for that is "inventory shrinkage". Stores lose a lot more to shrinkage than shoplifting.
According to the Nov 2002 National Retail Security Survey, almost 50% of all theft was committed by employees, not consumers.
I haven't done it, but I understand it... Back in the day I worked at quite a few stores, and I can tell you that when you are a one-dollar-over-minimum-wage employee living at or under the poverty line, it gets pretty tough to be surrounded by all sorts of products you want (and occasionally need) but couldn't possibly afford.
Not justifying it, I stayed honest... But I do understand. And I saw plenty of co-workers let go for theft. I do believe the problem would be much less severe (and customer service would dramatically improve) if companies paid their employees a little more, gave them real discounts (many places only give employees 10% off, if that... It barely negates sales tax), and perhaps even a gift card or something at Christmas you'd see employee theft decline dramatically.
A gift card or a store credit is hardly a refund...
embedded serial numbers of various types
Can this be? A Slashdotter actually ADVOCATING the adoption of RFID-like technologies?
After I pointed out the missing barcode, they switched the open box printer for a new one. If the open box discount had been more than $50 I would've taken the open box one.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
a direct result of poverty-line wages in the retail biz. OTOH CostCo pays an averageof $17/h and has the lowest employee theft and turnover rates in the industry (big surprise).
Do you wait for him to rape or kill someone?
What if he steals from your neighbor?
I turned in a fellow student who was stealing expensive tools from people's cars and trucks. I didn't regret it then and I don't regret it now.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The poster appantly didn't try talking to his 'friend' and just turned him in.
If you don't see anything wrong with that, then you're a person that I wouldn't want as a friend.
I've been friends with some people for 15+ years, and I know that they have my back, and I have theirs. I sure as hell wouldn't turn them in because they ripped off a BB or CC for $450.00
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
You must be one of those people who think that if something is public then it's "no one's". Same kind of people that empty their ashtray in the parking lot or throw litter on the highway.
The actions of these thieves affect all of us. It might not affect you directly but be sure that we all end up paying for it, either in higher prices, taxes or reduced convenience (if the stores decide to stop taking things back).
It's funny that the only times I've heard that are when the customer is wrong and/or trying to scam something.
I'll be glad when I never have to hear that lie again.
The typical upcharge just for going though a retailer (whether online or brick-and-mortar) is sometimes close to 50% of the original price, even more if we're talking about groceries. So a few scammers here and there aren't going to break that particular bank.
almost 50%? Then its not the biggest source of theft.
Is that like posting anonynously ;-) ?
Please explain to me how narcing on your friends is considered 'personal responsibility'?
You're a fair weather friend at best.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Other than two presidents, all of these are relativly recent and these are just a few in the new.
I would say that the current generation has learned where currently the moral compass points. The last 10 years have seen it slide to the south.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The world is not that black and white, at least not to me. Anyone who would even turn in a random stranger over your 50 cent candy bar is a plain asshole in my book.
To some degree I think this hinges on what definition of friend we're talking about. For "just a friend" - some guy I met at work and don't hang out with much and don't honestly care that much about, I would probably turn on them even in a simple case like this one (~$500 retail theft), just like the video card guy did, but if it was under $100, I probably wouldn't do crap.
For a decent friend that I have some history with, I would probably ignore any "victimless" crime (monetary crime against a corporation), although I might well never speak to them again if I strongly disagreed with their actions. I would only turn on them and turn them in if something personal happened to an individual (theft/vandalism of valuable personal property, assault, murder, any sex crime, etc).
For a "real" friend - someone I would trust my life with, those rare few you have in your life, my response would entirely depend on the situation and context. Again, I might never speak to the person afterwards, but there are limits on what I would turn them in for. I would always still turn on them over a crime against a child, or rape, or senseless murder of an innocent. Anything less, possibly including intentional homicide of someone for a specific reason, I might well keep my mouth shut, depending on the circumstances - whether I agreed with his actions or not.
11*43+456^2
simply more competent employees to work the returns counter.
For the bigger chains, it's likely cheaper to deal with the loss than to pay the sort of decent wages you need to attract "more competent employees".
If you don't see anything wrong with that, then you're a person that I wouldn't want as a friend.
Oh no, I see something wrong with it but that wrong does not cancel out the original fraud. If a friend wants me to have their back when they act like a moron then they need to think again. I am not going to stand complacent of some wrong just because you are my friend. Being fair goes both ways.
Every post I make begins with the assumption P=~P.
sounds like a perfect fit for rfid.
how wonderful, rfid can help retailers fight against those horrible criminals.
i for one welcome being tracked evermore for the benefit of information gatherers. oh and you have my permission to sell all data you have on me and i don't mind not being compensated in any way. i'm generous like that. yes, you may also search my bags when i leave your store, anything to make you feel more secure.
after all, the merchant is always right.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
Actually quite the opposit. The kid was under 18 so he only got a slap on the wrist, in other words: He may have learned a lesson and don't do it again.
If he'd been an adult and charged for Fraud then, well, as an adult he should have been aware of the risk.
Friendship doesn't mean that you let them get away with murder (or Fraud).
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Not even in the space between your ears.
You can't just 'think about morality' and expect it to happen. What is there to think about with morality. Right and wrong? Bah! Who says there are such things in this world. Only foolish optimists who are to scared to face the harsh reality that is planet earth.
You might argue that 'in order to cope with so many other people on the planet, I have to be nice to them' -- but that's just co-dependancy, not morality.
Sorry bud. I disagree with your premise. Morality wasn't there to begin with. It wasn't there to be placed inside people as a 'compass' (as cute as that sounds) to begin with.
To be honest, I'm glad these people have found a way to screw corporations even more. Why should they be the only ones with money? -- hording it like little school children horde candy. Why can't I go and stick it to the man -- ESPECIALLY if I'm outsmarting him.
He's the dumbass with the broken system -- not me. I'm just exploiting that fact.
Personally,
Yeah, that's one hell of a slippery slope (video card bandit -> rapist and murderer).
I'd rat him out if he was stealing from individuals, not multi billion dollar corps who already price in such thefts.
I'd also have the balls to talk to him first and give him a chane to stop doing what he's doing.
There's less obligation to a 'fellow student' than to a 'friend'. And it sounds like this was a habbit with this person. I don't equate what you did with what the OP did.
He sounds like he'd be one of those RAs in college who'd sniff under the door to see is kids were smoking pot just so he could bust them?
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
But that still leaves 50% who are not employees, ie customers.
IMHO, the best way for stores to slow down these type of scams is to impose a restocking charge on all returns (esp those over a minimal amount, say $10). The customers will hate it, but it would take some of the profit out of the scam. And profit is what the scam is all about.
OK, so let me get this suggestion of yours. Because retailers are so incompetent they are unable to prevent themselves from being scammed, it's easier to penalise everyone making a legitimate return, in the hopes of deterring the minority of thieves (who I am sure will find away around your restocking fee anyway)? I don't think I would shop there, personally. How about buying quality products, keeping track of your stock, training your employees and making sure they give a damn about thier job?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Yeah, the lesson learned is not to be very careful about the friends you keep.
Would you turn him in for lifing a $.25 pack of gum?
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Auction sites have reputation systems precisely to decrease the amount of this sort of fraud. It doesn't eliminate it, since there are various ways of circumventing it, but as with every auction purchase reputation helps ensure that you get what you paid for.
If the thief were willing to empty the card before sending it on, he probably just wouldn't bother sending the card at all. But he'll develop a bad reputation right quick.
Then its up to the auction company to try to decrease the amount of reputation fraud.
It's actually kind of nice that you can use an auction to convert something from a gift card to cash. Gift cards are restricted cash, and people get them all the time as, well, gifts. If you don't want them it's nice to be able to cash them out. Auction sites do that, with a bit of friction.
Amen. Being a friend doesn't mean helping you get away with being an ass and a criminal.
I call BS. I'll wager the amount of money retailers take from people who forget to return the rebate form or jump through its hoops far outweighs people playing their system like this. If it wasn't they would have stopped making cash refunds long ago.
They buy the merchandise, print their own receipts, and return it. They buy two watches - an expensive one and inexpensive one, and then swap them and return the one with the highest price.
The merchant should compare the receipt with his transaction history, and if it doesn't match, cal the cops.
If you have a PC POS then it's easy to keep a complete transaction history. And any jeweller that doesn't record all of its sales of expensive items is a fool.
Never, I mean NEVER buy anything from Fry's that has been repackaged!
again, NEVER!
I agree 100%
But it's not like his friend was asking him to cover for him or hide the loot.
He wasn't asking him to become an accessory to this.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
By far, the retailers are the biggest users of fraudulent tricks. Almost every time when we apply for a rebate, there is some excuse why they didn't send the money. Then I get on the telephone and begin saying the "F" word, fraud, and they either send the check or try another fraudulent trick.
Remember, if you don't get a rebate, call the rebate company and mention FRAUD. Mention that it is almost never the executives of a company who go to jail, everything is usually blamed on an employee.
This works because it costs money to hire people to answer the phone. They quit when they realize that they are working for a company whose business is fraud.
Another trick retailers and manufacturers have been using for years is to advertise something as the "lowest price for this model in your area". The manufacturers simply make the same item with several model numbers.
There are at least 100 other tricks commonly used by retailers.
Another trick is to mark merchandise discovered as defective, "sale".
I know Walmart (blechptooey) has a solution to a lot of this. When they ring up your sale, the receipt goes into their computer system. When you go to return an item they don't trust the paper receipt you've got, they pull up the record from the computer. Then they update the record to reflect the return, and print you a new receipt if you need one (eg. you haven't returned everything on the receipt). If you try to reuse the receipt to return the same thing again, the electronic record will trip you up. As far as I can tell, they update the records in real-time so even if you immediately to go another store they're be able to see your return and will refuse to take the second try.
As for the problem of people substituting cheaper items in the box and getting money/credit for the more expensive one, there's another simple solution to that: hire clerks who know your products. Of course you probably won't be able to get them for minimum wage, but them's the breaks. The store'll just have to decide which costs them less: paying higher wages or eating losses due to lower-quality employees.
I think the prevalence of the problem goes back to store policies at least in part. More and more often, stores have implemented draconian policies on returns. Often they charge 10-20% restocking fees even when the merchandise genuinely and obvious was defective when bought. That contributes a lot to customers deciding "Well, they're screwing me over every change they get, why shouldn't I play by their rules?".
If this is a true story, then why on earth didn't the retailer open the box and check to see if it was the right card? You wouldn't have any luck trying that where I shop. If anything, getting ripped off was just as much the retailer's fault for not checking.
I work at Staples (Office Supplies Store) and there is a system that we use to protect us from that. We scan someones ID/Drivers Licence and keep track of what they are returning, when it was returned, if there was a recipt or not, and if it was damaged, etc. This actually works rather well, as we had this guy that was "returning" projector bulbs.... by projector, I mean the expensive computer projectors. Well, so he wouldnt get cought, he was going from store to store returning these bulbs (almost $300 a pop). The computers finally flagged him, and he was turned down, only after 5 returns. So there are some safe guards in place that helps retailers protect themselves from this type of scam...... then again there is wall mart, you can return a box of rocks.....
Are you absentminded?
if you were only considering 2 possible sources of shrink, your statement is viable, but one doesnt need to have >50% to be the largest source when more than two possibilities are considered. additionally, having worked in retail and been part of both inventory and loss prevention i will tell you that 50% is very conservative, in many cases "shoplifting" is team effort, where one or more employees aid one or more non-employees in theft. often the non-employees are caught but the employees are not. these employees may be acting passively just providing information and strategy, or they may be the guy the returns counter processing returns he knows to be bogus and splitting the profits later...maybe its an employee intentionally distracting the loss prevention team, direct cameras to other locations, etc etc... from what i saw, in the store i worked in, more than 70% of loss had employee involvement (this includes when a dumbass drops a microwave or cuts through a dvd case opening a box...)
No. For a $.25 pack of gum, I'd go back and pay off his debt and then give him a serious mouthful about it in private. But if he's stealing $400 video cards for his own enjoyment from innocent victims? I guess I picked a bad friend. Sure, I'd ask him to turn himself in before I did it myself, but no way in hell I'll let him get away with it becuase he's my bud.
If "fair-weather-friend" means you drop people who turn out to be absolute amoral dipshits, then yeah, I'm a fair-weather friend. And I hope all my friends are, too.
You bastard! how could you !?!?
All I wanted was to play Unreal 2 in all it's glory, but we had used all our money taking out my mom's colon cancer and sponsoring two dozen children through worldvision. My dad was a drunk and spend the other half of the money in Vegas... My 3 brothers were born retar.. err.. metally handicapped and I spend my childhood spoon-feeding them and wiping their ass.
I just wanted to see the bump-mapping and 128 meg textures... sob sob...
Im.
ok, maybe I lied about the retarded brothers.
Agreed, But it seems like individual store's "Shrinkage" and also its expenditures on security are not well advertised figures, (rather secret infact) All im saying is companies arent dumb when it comes to protecting their bottom line (how they fare with other issues is up to debate ;) but if it didnt make financial sence for them to invest in this, I think its safe to say they wouldnt.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
The CEO of Costco happens ot agree with you and employees are paid very well, given a good benefits package and so on. As a side effect Costco has a much lower turnover rate and employee theft rate than your average retail chain. They don't compensate with higher prices either.
And for all that, they still make a lot of money.
You'll never eliminate it, of course, some people are just greedy. Every person could live in luxury and there'd still be those who stole just to have more, but you are absolutly correct that when employees are paid for shit and treated like shit, they are much more prone to theft.
Compared to what some of the poor, victimized by evil customers (thank you best buy) retail stores do, the "rampant rise of fraud" pales.
/I think I hear the theme from "Schindlers List" being played, but it is really, really quiet.
Let's take a look at what some / virtually all of the stores do.
1. Blatantly and regularly violating in false advertising and bait and switch laws by claiming "oh, it was a price mistake that we don't have to honor that price."
Virtually every online store engages in such practices, although B&M stores are doing this more and more as well.
1a. Not applying sale prices at the cashier or overcharging the customer
2. Using rebate houses that don't honor / lose / just flat out destroy rebates. (CompUSA, TigerDirect, and pretty much everyone else)
3. Using rebate houses that don't pay on time. I've filed over $10,000 in rebates and I can count on one hand the number of rebates that came on time. It should not take 8 weeks for someone to cut you a check. Again, everyone who offers rebates engages in such behavior.
4. Selling extended warranties that are for the most part entirely useless. (My friend's laptop sitting on a kitchen counter started melting - proc overheated, motherboard got scorched and even some of the keys, and the chasis melted, Circuit City refused to honor the extended warranty because they claimed it was "Abuse")
4a. Claiming something is a "warranty", when in fact it is not. Read the fine print on some of these "warranties", have a laugh / cry.
4b. Training their salespeople to lie about the benefits of the "warranty". If some AG wants to file a suit, I know that Staples stores have a couple training CD-Roms lying around that clearly contradict the policies in the extended "warranties"
5. Getting around pricematch policies by ordering slightly different (yet identical in all features) models from the manufacturer. i.e. a HP PSC 950 and HP PSC 950xi. Perhaps not illegal, but a shady, shady practice that lets retail stores ignore their price match policies for many items.
6. (This is really devoted to my favorite, favorite store, Fry'ed Electronics). Labelling missing items as "containing all parts", even though many parts are missing. Then accusing the person trying to return a half empty box of theft.
Or throwing returns back onto the shelf without any indication that the product was returned or is missing parts. I'm sure this violates a whole bunch of laws, but hey...
7. Frys also gets the award for selling accessories that clearly won't work with the product that the customer has. i.e. the sales associates pushing SATA drives onto people who have only IDE controllers, Pentium processors for AMD motherboards, etc, etc.
Of course, every so often, the poor, helpless retail stores get caught and get - at most, a light slap on the wrist.
If you engage in clearly unethical business practices on all levels - from the very top to your store managers and even in the training materials that you give to your associates, you have as much right to complain as someone who paid a drug dealer with fake money and realized that they were sold orageno.
The fraud perpetrated onto the customer by these retail stores far exceeds any losses. Moreover, shady behaviour is encouraged by management and continues, even in the face of the occasional "Martha Stewart" FTC / BBB / "local / regional government agency that handles this sort of stuff" investigation.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
I smell someone who has never worked in retail before, and is persnickity around those who do....
Get off your high horse.
It's called 'civic duty'. Like paying your taxes and other nutty, communist ideals.
How long have you been molesting yours?
It also used to work with telemarketers before the "do-not-call" list went into effect. They don't know you're really not a lawyer, but if you dress nicely and look (and/or sound) old enough, they'll believe anything.
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
And try not to laugh too hard if they give you back a blank stare...
Yes I've been there (a few months ago), and yes I've shopped there (you can get killer deals), but in china (and much of the far east) the social contract is just understood that, except in the "big-name" stores, buyer beware...
"He sounds like he'd be one of those RAs in college who'd sniff under the door to see is kids were smoking pot just so he could bust them?"
Consensual crimes don't hurt anyone else.
if those speakers are so PRO, then why dont they have built in protector circuits and temperature monitors to prevent overheating?
Let me guess, made in china.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
On a few occasions recently I've had to return computer gear to a well known retailer. On each of these, there was nothing tehnically wrong with the product in question, just that it either didn't run in Linux or wasn't the piece I was looking for.
Specifically, there was an 802.11 card that was the same model but different version (therefore different chipset -- Broadcom instead of Prism) than indicated on the box, a sound card that just wouldn't work (my fault for not researching), and a graphics card that had a fan even though the picture on the box showed a heatsink.
Anyway, all three times, they accepted my explanation and let me exchange for what I wanted, but they never actualy opened the boxes and looked at what I had returned, at least not while I was there.
On top of that, I paid cash each time, and declined to give them my name and address.
The third time, when I was returning the video card, I was actually tempted to swap it for an older card -- I was pretty sure they wouldn't look, and they had no way to trace me.
Of course the temptation only lasted a few seconds; I am not a thief, and the deed I was considering is really, really slimy. All the same, it doesn't surprise me at all that other people do this.
My wife works in retail, and has truely wonderful stories about customer returns. One of my favorites is the one about someone who returned a chiped coffee cup that the shop hadn't had in stock for at least 10 years, but it had the store's name written on the bottom. And they granted the refund.
I think people who run this scam are cool anarchists who are working hard to derail the capitalist system. Such people deserve our respect and admiration. They are working towards a higher good - destroying the evil capitalist system that uses money to pit brother against brother. They have a better moral compass than you.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
But the BestBuy sales rep, who explained the manf warranty and the return policy and even sold me the BestBuy extended warranty which would be good for a replacement if it broke in 3yrs, told the camera is designed for water skiing/scuba diving/sailing/etc and is waterproof down to 100m.
Unfortunately there is fraud, but there are also customers being lied to by stores desperate to make a sale and a sucker out of the person who if they realized the con noticed only after they brought it home and opened it to read the manual and the warranty card. And can be denied a return because they opened it, damn shrink wrap EULAs. It would be nice to have all the claims made by sales reps in writing and signed by the store manager.
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
I know that it is stupidly difficult to commit retail fraud at Staples. Trust me. Why? Our all-encompassing POS system. Transaction histories, the ability to dig out a past receipt (no more "I lost it, but here's the item"), and linked transaction numbers. That, combined with checking the returned products (no computers filled with potatoes) and so on, make it that much more difficult for lowlife thieves.
In the 6 months I have worked here, the only crime I have heard about was all physical. Taking the box and running, taking a product out of the box and sneaking it out, etc. Pretty much all of the crimes committed in our stores are posted around the district. There are not too many of these, thankfully.
The article also talks about returning products being counted as fraud. I have not seen any evidence of it here. Of course, we don't sell fancy clothes you just want to wear once or whatever, but we flaunt our "bring it back in 30 days for any reason" policy and it doesn't even matter if they are just trying it out. If it's in saleable condition, sell it. Otherwise, return it to the manufacturer as defective. I don't see any problem. It might be a problem with the smaller retailers, but most of them also don't have return policies like we do.
Time to go, a customer is approaching the service desk.
At what rate do you think we should have, so that no one steals? There is always something just out of reach.
+++
My last.fm page
Get off your high horse.
Well why should I pay $10 to "restock" a defective product? I don't have to pay it today. So I will be losing out if this was implemented. Sticking up for my rights is not being on a high horse. As an Anonymous Coward, however, I am sure that you are not capable of defending your rights. Maybe you want to pay my $10 fee for me then?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
>I would probably ignore any "victimless" crime >(monetary crime against a corporation) Yea, screw all those millions of people that own stock in Best Buy.
I must admit, that I twice ripped off stores like this when I was a child. Like the post above, I have returned an old video card in the place of a new one.
I also used to rent Super Nintendo games like Lufia or Secret of Mana. I would then go home and find that unlicensed "Super-Bible-Quiz" game my mother found at who-knows-where. A small screwdriver would open the cartridge cases, and after a quick movement of the hands, my "Super-Bible-Quiz" really played a spiffy-nifty game instead. And the next poor chap to rent Secret of Mana got quizzed on his Biblical knowledge instead (though only the kid-friendly parts).
I worked at one of the major computer/office machine retailers in North America, and we would often see attempts of return fraud and brazen theft. A few that stand out in memory are the router box looking pristine and still shrinkwrapped on the outside, was found to contain a jumble of random AV cords to approximate the weight of the original product, many mismatched serial number returns, B routers in G boxes. We even had a couple walk in with a stroller with a blanket over it complete with phony kid legs hanging out the bottom. I tell you, work retail for a short period, and you'll lose faith in humanity. Especially when a manager lets it go because they are too afraid to tell a customer that for once they aren't right.
My one piece of advice to consumers, is scrutinize your boxes before you take them home. If it's been retaped, don't buy it. Sure, 75% are fine, but it's the other 25% you don't want. Associates cannot possibly test the products to be OK, we aren't paid enough to care, when fraud is caught nothing comes of it, and you end up doing the vast majority of the legwork to recify the issue if it doesn't work. Force retailers to tighten return policies through consumer choice, or buy online to avoid this altogether.
Big box retailers don't give a damn about return fraud, or at least not in proportion to the amount that goes on. In the end, it's the honest customer that pays higher prices to cover the costs, and backwards rebate structures make up for it.
I had a manager tell me once that when we beat sales expectations, it essentially means the employees on the floor are overworked, and that is a good thing to head office. It isn't just individuals to blame, think Enron, Worldcom, and Haliburton. There is a corporate ethos that if you can get away with it, do it. The corporation and profit is our culture, and culture is shredding our social fabric. Observe the result.
They should have printed up a fake Wal-Mart receipt. Jeez.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
"it's almost to the point where you can only accept cash these days, but you gotta check that with a money pen or check it to be legit. you got stolen checks, fake checks, counterfiet money, everything.. what's the world coming to?"
Hold on a second. *puts BT of the latest movie on pause* What's your question again?
Retail has been ripping consumers off for years.
Cars, computers, and clothes don't really cost the ammount they charge. What's bad is, salemen lying to you with a straight face.
But that isn't insightful either.
Its just general knowledge.
All great Empires fell because of many mistakes.
Egypt, Rome, MesoAmerica.
Why is it they fell?
Ask yourself this question and write down all the answers.
Why, Why is it they fell?
lOsers! I'll tell you n00bs why!
Yeah, that would be what you'd expect.
Wealth. Amassing Wealth!
Honestly 2000$ isn't much these days.
What if we all went back to living off the land.
Buy, Sale, these terms would dissapear.
Payment, the only payoff is the hunt for food.
Electronics, Mechanical atrosities, these things will not sustain you. They only serve to control.
When there is no war, there is no use for tanks.
When a man learns the many trades of life, there is no longer trade for he is the master.
People relying on other people for service is the makings of a downfall. Our empire will surely fall should this continue.
When my daughter was 3 she took a candy bar from the store. My wife and I made her go back and confess to the store manager, give the candy bar back, and apologize. He declined to press charges. (Actually he was very nice.)
She learned a valuable lesson not to steal. Does that make us assholes in your book?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Okay, everyone who is posting about their "friend" who has committed a form of retail fraud, we all know what you're saying. No need to tack on the extra moral outrage to try and convince us. :)
My friend bought some top notch engine old and spark plugs to do a service on his car. Then he poured the old oil back in the bottle, and put the sparkies back into the pack and went and got a refund on it.
I work at a Home depot-like in canada. On a weekly basis I see people buying household items such as pressure washers,lawnmowers and even lawn tractors, and bringing them back soon after because of unsactisfaction, items looking like bizarre trench warfare rituals. As a salesman, I always refuse to refund but more often than not, I am overuled by my spineless superiors. For customer relations reasons. They say.
There is a very real escalading cost to this as most suppliers would not take them back from the retailer, passing the full loss to the store.
Our stores are turning more and more into cost free rental shops.
Fornextone
The stupid kid was STEALING 450 bucks --just short of grand theft. And you advocate that he should not have been punished at all? No wonder kids have no moral compass.
I can only hope you don't reproduce. At least until you mature a bit.
Good for you.
"Mind your own business" and "nobody likes a tattle-tale" are the cause of too many problems in this world. If it affects how society works then it is my business.
Mark Felt is an American hero.
Yeah and some people are deaf dumb and blind to crimes that are *much* worse. Where you do you draw the line? Obviously you think fraud is OK, what about rape? murder? But it all ok isn't it, as long as it doesn't affect *you*?
If somebody defrauded you out of money wouldn't you like to catch the person who did it? IMHO the OP showed great depth of character and moral fibre to do what they did. Thankyou!
>I'd rat him out if he was stealing from
>individuals, not multi billion dollar corps who
>already price in such thefts.
Corporations are owned by people. I own stock in many of those corporations, as does a large portion of the US BTW. They are stealing from a LOT of people. If you have a managed portfolio (IRA? 401k?) then there is a good chance they are stealing from you. What about the profit sharing plans for employees? They are also victems.
Don't they teach economics in school any more?
I can't believe you snitched on your friend. I can appreciate you telling him you feel strongly about this sort of thing and that you cant be friends with a thief, but your actions were most innapropriate.
I consider betraying your friends trust to be worse than his fraud.
Why? People were stealing entire rolls of stamps from the shops and selling them on eBay.
If you have legit stamps you have until some time this month to redeem them. Then Subway's "customer loyalty" program is gone forever.
BASTARDS. I used those stamps legitimately and consistently for years; Now these jerks have cost me my 10% discount.
Uh, huh. Sing the same old tune til death comes for you. Anyway there's one thing that both have in common that your side seems to have a zero grasp of. The honest pay for the sins of both. In the former we lose the convienence of returns. In the latter we get saddled with DRM. Stealing or Copyright Infringement, neither side is doing anyone but themselves any favours.
for it...yet we tend to look at the small things in life and punish the offenders for their crimes. Just an irony that noone is accountable for massive theft in war, yet retail theft is treated much more harshly.
Anyone disagree?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
First, I should say that it is, of course, illegal and unethical to do this sort of thing.
However, this sounds like it would mostly affect businesses whose employees don't know their customers and don't know their products very well; that is, it affects mostly the large chains whose sales staff isn't very competent.
The overall effect of this kind of fraud may actually be to help small and high quality retailers become more competitive again. And maybe that's actually a good thing.
I think he was suggesting that the OP confront his friend about it and tell him that it was a wrong thing to do and if he doesn't return the money he will turn him in. That's what a parent would likely do in that situation, and what a good friend would do, too. I think most stores would probably be cool about it if you came in and apologized and gave their money back. Instead, he just ratted out his friend with no warning and made him really learn his lesson the hard way.
Wait, so you're saying that if people weren't stealing.....I wouldn't have to pay so much for my stuff......?!?!? Turn the bitch in!
Seriously, that's shitty of his friend to dupe the biz that way. I'm not for big biz, by any means, but that's just not right. Don't know if I'd turn my friend in like that, definitely give him a talking to, but he wouldn't be someone I ever trusted again, regardless. I do demand quality in the people I associate with.
The fine article is interesting, though it sure reads a bit like the sort of article mentioned in Paul Graham's excellent essay "The Submarine". The suit is back!
I just said that they ain't gonna go out of business because of a few scamsters here and there, even if they claim they will.
They buy freaking lettuce for $0.17 and sell it for $1.70. Where does the money go? How come retailers can offer up to 40% off on most things when they _really_ need to sell stuff. Do you think they're losing money in this case?
And how is that suppose to stop or slow down people from stealing or scamming the company? Let's say that I stole a $100 item and then decided to return it. Assuming a 10% restocking fee, I'd still profit $90 in store credit (returned without a receipt) or cash (returned with faked receipt). So, how did the restocking fee hurt me? It didn't. It only hurts the honest consumer who mistakenly bought the wrong item. Why should they be penalized? They didn't do anything wrong.
I mean, haven't you ever had to return something because it was the wrong item or it didn't do what it or the ads claimed it would do? Are you telling us that you wouldn't mind paying the restocking fee for it?
I had an *ahem* friend who when He was in high school, and not subject to hardcore prison terms etc, did a little bit of this. He would buy an expensive computer part, and return it a cheap component. Sometimes he would even replace a 6 gig Hard drive ($300 at the time) with paperback book, and then reshrink wrap the item and return it. Once at walmart, the lady at the exchange counter, called over someone to teach them how to verify the product was the correct one. My uhm, friend was scared shitless until the lady pointed the name "Creative" on the soundcard, and since that was also on the box, It must be the correct product. The moral of the story is if any of the employe's had a flippin clue, this could have been prevented.
He wants Tyler Durden back.
What kind of person potentially fucks up a kid's life and permanent record without at least trying to get him straightened out first?
Hey! It's not the OP fault that the "friend" commited fraud. Or are we not resonsible for our own actions anymore? If the "friend" can't hack the responsibility of his own actions he should GROW SOME FUCKING BACKBONE. Who are we to say that the "friend" wasn't fucking sombody else's (like the owner of the shop) life up by commiting the crime in the first place?
It's the fucks like this "friend" that make life harder for everybody else. I'm glad he was done in! And I bet your the kind of wimp that couldn't hack it either because "it's not my fault".
Do you actually believe that the store just eats the cost when someone steals from them? The cost to business exceeds $30 billion per year. Is it not possible that we all pay higher prices at the store to pay for what your "friend" took. Your friend is an asshat and deserves to get a serious beating.
"Would you turn in a friend if he stole a 50 cent candy bar? A 500,000 check in an insurance scam? No then yes? At what point would you turn him in? At what monetary amount?"
Reminds me of the old saw:
A man asks a woman, "Would you sleep with me for one million dollars?" The woman thinks about it for a moment, smiles, and says, "Yes." The man then asks, "Then, would you sleep with me for one dollar?!" The woman immediately replies, "Absolutely not! What kind of a girl do you think I am?!?" The man says, "I've already established what kind of girl you are. Now we're haggling over the price."
An oldie but a goodie...
as someone that deals with canon repair regularly, 100% of warrenty rejections are because of customer abuse. Water damage is the #1 attempt at a warrenty repair on canon cameras.
As someone who had a camera break because of "water damage", the manufacturer may be to blame as well. I had a new camera break during a hike; I never took it out of my backpack and there was no rain. The sweat condensing on the camera was enough to destroy it through "water damage". When I disassembled it, it turned out that the camera had no seals in it whatsoever. Needless to say, I'm not going to buy that brand again; that kind of design is not acceptable even for a low-end consumer camera.
the customer signs a paper that states that they will be charged up to 2X full retail value if they try to ship an item that they damaged in for warrenty repair. it usually stops 30% of the returns as he makes them read that line.
Hopefully, they also stop buying at your shop; your customer service sounds like it is rude and poor.
I have refused to buy a digital camera so far because they are crap. I tell everyone I meet that digital cameras are $300 disposable cameras.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Trade some work for some food... And it's consensual...
Hire someone and pay "under the table"... And it's consensual...
Bring an illegal alien into the country... And it's consensual...
Hire an illegal alien... And it's consensual...
Hire an illegal alien as a illicit sex worker in exchange for food... And it's consensual...
Of course everyone has their limit on what they think is hurting the public good. Although most people think there is some value in the public good, it's hard for people to agree on what the line is, but that doesn't mean there is no value in prosecuting ANY consensual crimes...
And then there are tons of consensual crimes that involve money (tax evasion, mortgage fraud, equity skimming, insider trading, etc), where no specific person is hurt, except somehow we are all less better off...
Perhaps I'll feel better when the pot dealers submit excise tax receipts to the municipalites where they deal, pay all their runners minimum wage, and the pot smokers pay sales tax and put the fact they smoke on their insurance application medical history forms so the risk can be properly actuarialized. Until then, color me unconvinced that there's no hurt... It may not reach your threshold of hurt, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist...
I put all this crap people say about drugs/prostitution being consensual and no harm to anyone in the same category as the crap people say about how safe it is to transport nuclear waste through your neighborhood. Fine if you believe that, but sorry buddy, not in my neighborhood (just in case)... Some people feel more strongly, and say not in ANY neighborhood and you know, we live in a republic, go vote...
If he's willing to rip off a store for $450, what do you think he'll do when he finds your wallet laying out? Maybe stealing a few bucks at a time.
Despite some people's negative reactions, I approve of what you did. He cheated, and you made sure he got caught. I only hope I have the strength to do the same.
For "just a friend"...if it was under $100, I probably wouldn't do crap
For a "real" friend - someone I would trust my life with, those rare few you have in your life, my response would entirely depend on the situation and context
I really feel sorry for you. If your would have known thieves as "real" friends and then trust them with your life you have bigger things to worry about!
I know, I know, someone is forgetting their wallet with money in it and you can see how the chap is walking away and his wallet is on the ground and you are already to pick it up and go shopping but then this blocke picks it up and before you have a chance returns it to the owner. A MOTHER-FUCKER!
You can't handle the truth.
If the boy was 14, I'd probably agree. I admit I ran off the handle, picturing a 17 year old (after all, he did have 450 bucks for a video card).
If he was 16-17, I think he should be treated harshly. He's old enough to know what he's doing. Plus, let's not dramatize; it's not like hes gonna be doing hard time. I'm guessing a suspended sentence and a clean slate when he turns 18.
*sigh*
I swear you all would miss the forest if there wasn't trees to smack into.
What is the purpose of theft? To have something physical? Not necessarily. The purpose of theft is to gain something for yourself at the expense of society. This is true of cable theft, identity theft, and physical theft. This is even true of piracy. In all the above examples one person gains something that results in self-gratification, at the expense (not always measured in dollars e.g.trust in others) of the honest who don't engage in such self-serving behaviour (can you spot the honest in the lineup?). All these word-games are basically red herrings because they divert from the purpose of the act.
OTOH CostCo pays an averageof $17/h and has the lowest employee theft and turnover rates in the industry (big surprise).
Yeah, and have you seen the stuff they sell there? EVERYTHING IS HUGE!!! How could you possibly steal any of that stuff?
It'd be slightly unwieldy to put a 36 pack of Bounty paper towels under your shirt and walk out.
wowa.. first off narc'n your friend out is unnacceptable. I pulled some stupid stunts like this in high school, and although I was obviously wrong, narc'ing on someone about as wrong as you can get. I guarantee if someone I knew had narc'd me out, They would very soon be in need of a wheelchair to get around. You should have gone to the store and given them an anonymous tip about that type of fraud if you were so concerned. Didn't your mom tell you no one likes a tattle tale?
so that leaves the majority to fault of consumers... this makes both parties suspicious
"Persistence is annoying success." - ghee22 11:28:1999 - 10:53:PM
Zero fucking tolerance. I think all druggies should be just shot if they hurt anyone because of their drug-problem.
You can't handle the truth.
"I can't believe you snitched on your friend. I consider betraying your friends trust to be worse than his fraud. "
In Britain, there is a phone number that you can call if you want to snitch anyone to the police anonymously. According to police statistics, the calls are divided rather equally in three categories:
1. Crooks trying to get rid of the competition.
2. Friends and relatives who snitch on a small crook to avoid him becoming a big crook.
3. Concerned citizens.
There's a good chance that the guy learned a lesson and was stopped from a life of crime. And involving a friend in your crime is a nasty thing to do. If you steal, don't tell your friends. If you steal and your friends find out, you give them the choice of becoming accomplice to a crime or ratting on you.
Oh, the other statistics is that statistically, those people who say that snitching is worse than committing the crime, are most likely to snitch on you if it is to their advantage.
You claim you've graduated high school? You couldn't tell that from your grammar or spelling. Also, if my ethics were as lacking as yours I wouldn't brag about it.
According to the Nov 2002 National Retail Security Survey, almost 50% of all theft was committed by employees, not consumers.
So what? I am sure that retailers are anxious to detect and stop employee theft, too.
For most products, the brick and mortal business model is DEAD. E-commerce offers better variety, lower prices, and a chance for smaller e-tailers to compete. The overhead costs with running a b&m are rediculous, and you end up with higher prices, and paying people a slave wage.
In the case of the "switching the box" situation - this is NOT stealing.
You PAID for a product. You were the informed consumer, and they were the merchant. When you come back to the store you are SELLING them a product. If they decide it is cheaper to pay someone $7/hr that cannot tell the difference of their own products - then its their own damn fault. You cant have it both ways.
This is a battle between the consumers and retail corporations. They have a literal ARMY of people to deceive you, with PR, marketing, et cetera.
Forcing manufacturers to outsource production to China is unethical.
Destroying local economies is unethical.
Fighting unions is unethical.
Selling $20 printers to poor people, and when they go to get ink refills they find out they cost $40 (?!). THAT is unethical.
Sticking it back to these assholes? That's fighting for a noble cause.
told the camera is designed for water skiing/scuba diving/sailing/etc and is waterproof down to 100m.
Err, show me one camera 'casing' that rated at 100m costing less than $1,000. You should do some homework...........
I think most stores would probably be cool about i
Oh yeah, we are really cool about people stealing stuff from us. Come on in! the price tags don't really mean anything. Hell, I followed one prick around town the other day just for stealing $50 worth of stock until he agreed to come to the cop shop. And you know what? It's turns our that he has stolen before and been charged for it. How many second chances should he be given?
I find that people who don't care about theft don't care about you or me either. It's not in our best interest to hope the "grow out of it" or just decide what they were doing is wrong. They won't because there is no advantage in it. If the people around them (us) don't stand up for ourselves and make them see what they are doing is wrong then they won't stop.
--
AC for obvious reasons.
I had a problem with a Target return. I had a few Star Wars figures I was returning...
Now on the receipt, all figures look alike. It just says "3 SW Figures" or something of the like.
I had a few receipts with me, but it turns out that of the three figures I was returning only two appeared to be on any of the reciepts I had. That is to say, Target knew exactly which figure went with which reciept but I had no-way to tell.
They did give me store credit but I was a little annoyed about the whole thing. I don't mind them keeping track but I, the consumer have to be able to tell as much as they can about what I am trying to return.
I have to say the annoyance is offset by the really LONG time you get now most places to return things - 90 days in a lot of stores, and a worker at WalMart told me that unofficially they won't even really look at the date if the return is not for much money.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I just think it's really suprising how people are saying how terrible fraud like this is, and how this is terrible for companies, and so on. I don't get it, I've done a few good retail scams in my day, and made out with a pretty good profit at the expense of Walmart. Considering the terrible human rights violations and cruel business practices Walmart is known for, why should I treat them with any respect? Best Buy is another company I've had no problem ripping off. For those who don't know, their whole philosophy is to decieve their customers, and sell them as much as possible, despite their actual needs. Their employees are advertised as not working for commision, which is true, but certainly doesn't mean they're honest. They work for their schedule hours. The more that they sell, they more they'll get to work. If they don't sell enough, they may only get a few hours a week to work. They're taught (and in many cases forced) to take advantage of those that are technologically unintelligent, the elderly, immigrants, even the mentally handicapped. (A friend of mine was actually scolded at work for not taking greater advantage of a mentally handicapped customer). All things considered, why on earth should we feel sorry for companies like this? I believe I should take all I can from people like this. Of course there are small companies run by families or friends, who truly care about their customers, and are just trying to do their best for people while making a living, and I would never attempt to steal from these kinds of people, even though it would probably be even easier. However, until major companies begin to act in a moral fashion (unlikely in a capitalist society), I'll have no regrets stealing from them.
My favorate spectacle was watching someone in pep boy yelling at the clerk about brake pads that wore out in only one month. I new damned well that the customer was just returing the old brake pads as if they were the prematurly worn new brake pads. I almost said something but decide not to get involved.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
Costco does most of its business in bulk items. A large amount of that stuff comes in much larger packaging than most of the stuff sold by, say, Walmart. Makes it hard to steal it, even as an employee. I think a lot of their lower theft rate is attributable purely to their particular merchandise.
:-)
I imagine the employee theft rate is even lower at an RV lot, minimum wage or no
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Nah, what you are is victim of some Eastern-European emotion. "Litost" from the Czech comes to mind, but only as an influence.
I don't mean the following as a rebuke or even as advice, but rahter something I thought of while reading your thread. Sometimes what we think is one thing--we say, "that is (in terms of essence) this!"--is actually something very different--"that is this! (or so I believe [because I am this...])"; basically, we fail to take into account our own perspective. You might consider, have you world enough and time, what your relationship was with your friend before you did this, and which friends, family members, or random acquaintences you would also turn in. Also worth consideration is how you mark this "successful"... would it still be worthy of posting online if your friend had not been called into account, if your mother had disagreed with your actions, if the register-monkey had lookt at you in disgust?
What I'm saying: be careful with grand declarations of moral superiority. They often bely something of a very different nature.
Here's a poem by Ezra Pound. It's out of a series of poems he called The Cantos and it is numbered XIII. Kung is Confucius.
Kung walked
by the dynastic temple
and into the cedar grove,
and then out by the lower river,
And with him Khieu Tchi
and Tian the low speaking
And "we are unknown," said Kung,
"You will take up charioteering?
"Then you will become known,
"Or perhaps I should take up charioterring, or archery?
"Or the practice of public speaking?"
And Tseu-lou said, "I would put the defences in order,"
And Khieu said, "If I were lord of a province
"I would put it in better order than this is."
And Tchi said, "I would prefer a small mountain temple,
"With order in the observances,
with a suitable performance of the ritual,"
And Tian said, with his hand on the strings of his lute
The low sounds continuing
after his hand left the strings,
And the sound went up like smoke, under the leaves,
And he looked after the sound:
"The old swimming hole,
"And the boys flopping off the planks,
"Or sitting in the underbrush playing mandolins."
And Kung smiled upon all of them equally.
And Thseng-sie desired to know:
"Which had answered correctly?"
And Kung said, "They have all answered correctly,
"That is to say, each in his nature."
And Kung raised his cane against Yuan Jang,
Yuan Jang being his elder,
or Yuan Jang sat by the roadside pretending to
be receiving wisdom.
And Kung said
"You old fool, come out of it,
"Get up and do something useful."
And Kung said
"Respect a child's faculties
"From the moment it inhales the clear air,
"But a man of fifty who knows nothing
Is worthy of no respect."
And "When the prince has gathered about him
"All the savants and artists, his riches will be fully employed."
And Kung said, and wrote on the bo leaves:
If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;
And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;
And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.
And Kung gave the words "order"
and "brotherly deference"
And said nothing of the "life after death."
And he said
"Anyone can run to excesses,
"It is easy to shoot past the mark,
"It is hard to stand firm in the middle."
And they said: If a man commit murder
Should his father protect him
Jeez, by your logic I should be able to go to a car lot and get a new car after my car is past warrenty.
COnsidering you also knowging violate your ISP agreement, ignore the warning they send you, buys dell computers, and this that msSQL can work in a heavy transaction retial system.
Bah, Canadian Weenies.
Wrong Item? Your own damn fault.
Didn't do what the ads claimed it would do? Their fault. The UCC says they have to give you a refund. No 'restocking fee' allowed. Not only that, but if you have to buy the correct item somewhere else they owe you the difference in cost (see "Cover").
So it's OK to steal that candy bar from a random stranger (well, company), but teaching them basic cause and effect by turning them in? Hell, I'd practically consider it doing them a favour, before someone turns them in for stealing something more expensive, and they get into serious trouble. Better to end up paying for the candy bar (which, at the end of the day, is all that's going to happen to them), than ending up in jail for something bigger.
Irrespective of anything else, I'd certainly avoid anyone I knew did this (not just heard rumours, knew), and watch my back any time I couldn't avoid them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just remember we live in a snitch society.
Let me get this straight:
Theft, and assault, are both fine
Teaching you to take responsibility for your own actions is wrong
???
Bull. When I worked at a grocery store, employees were responsible for MAYBE 10% of loss. (I know that our store didn't necessarily represent the industry as a whole but bear with me here.)
Due to horrible laziness on the part of the store management, though, we had an incredible amount of customer theft. People would walk out with full carts of groceries and the managers wouldn't bat an eye.
So how did said management stay out of trouble over all the loss? Blame it on the employees.
http://angel.merseine.nu - Stuff for the poet, diva, geek, romantic and angel in all of us.
Every post I make begins with the assumption P=~P.
I cant believe you guys are all so big on turning friends in. We have all done bad things, (admittedly the worst I did was steal some chocolates).
You guys just like the fantasy that you are the good guys who's job it is to go around correcting all those morally weak people.
Er, yeah. That's only if your state adopted that particular portion of the UCC. (see your "State/Local Statutes")
Just because something is 'Uniform' doesn't mean that it's in force in your state. What, are the UCC police going to come and yell at Target or Walmart if they don't play along?
My guess is it took at least that long before they even noticed the problem. Figure it takes on average 3 months of use on the order of your use. Now consider that most people that buy treadmills use them for a week as a treadmill then convert them for use as a laundry drying rack.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Every post I make begins with the assumption P=~P.
..all the retailers I know track receipts by both unique receipt numbers, and any consumer data they can get their hands on. Retailers that don't have computerised inventory tracking mechanisms really need to dredge themselves out of the 19th century.
Please make sure that the kid is not on the scene when you do this. Kids are exposed to enough sex and violence already. Thank you.
If there were more people with that fantasy in the world, we might have a higher percentage of moral people in the world. Just food for thought.
-- sigs cause cancer.
Say your mouse breaks... buy the same brand at a store. Simply return it later on w/ the broken one inside.
:)
I've done it so far w/ mice and linksys routers.
Is it bad? Yeah, but you'll get over it
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
This doesn't count theft/fraud by the store against the customer. I'll never shop at circuit city again.
That's like the story where a city council was about to send bailiffs to recover an overdue library book from a mobile library.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
...and you're a thief. Steal millions of dollars and you're a good businessman.
Im gonna go ahead and chime in calling you an ass for ratting your "friend" out as well.
If he was truely your friend why not try to convince him he was wrong to do what he did? Dont you think he might learn a bit more from that?
Sorry man, I know youve heard this about a dozen times in this thread, but that was a really shitty thing to do...to anyone...friend or foe.
...the co-founder of "The Return Exchange", in a thinly-veiled advertisement for his company does.
Business week is just printing his Q&A ad for him, and making it look like an article. Apparently, the company offers outsourcing of some of the paperwork involved in managing returns...
If one steals a Rolex and then returns it with a fake reciept for cash or credit , one has stolen money instead of the Rolex, using the stolen Rolex to achieve this.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Competency isn't the only issue, most big chains just want you to hurry up and get to the next person. Also oftentimes management will ok stuff that the people behind the counter don't want to take back (all in the name of customer service).
Realize this:
Most policies that retailers have which a normal person would consider "unreasonable" do not apply to you if
A couple examples you might not know:
That's enough consumer school for today.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
...couldn't find an interested party.
Good thing I shop at Newegg... there's no sense in trying to committ fraud with online, they have all your personal info!
WM receipts are bar-coded. They track back to the data warehouse at Home Office in Bentonville. Likewise at Target. I have not checked K-Mart recently (partly because most of the KMs around here got axed). The place that exposures happen is when stores take back stuff without a receipt or where it has been opened and riffled or substitute contents put inside the box.
If the stores are going to protect themselves, they need to have trackable receipts *and* they have to refuse stuff that has no receipt.
I can't tell you how many times I have seen stuff on a WM clearance pile (in the toy dept right after Christmas) with a Toys R Us loss control tag stuck to the bottom of the box. Obviously, the WM clerks are taking the stuff without a receipt and not looking over the package for obvious signs that it came from somewhere else (prolly because the person taking it back received it as a gift and would rather have the cash).
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
Why should brick and mortar retailers be any different than the online retailers ? Many online retailers are now specifying a restocking fee. Go look at the Apple Store... buy something there and pay a restocking fee (it was 10% or 15% last time I checked) if you decide to return it. That has a effect of reducing returns and it (hopefully) causes folks to be a little more careful in their selections (of course some folks have way too much money, so they don't care one way or the other). If the online retailers are executing that much better than the local stores, then the local stores are going to have to make up for it one way or the other... I would suspect higher shelf prices to cover the added costs.
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
My GF brought a iPod mini with an extended warantee. A few weeks later it's battery crapped out and it wouldn't run longer than 5 mins. The original store refused to honor their "extended" warantee.
...and I don't; I refuse to feel bad about something that feels so obvious and natural as my heart beating. Shame on the original store for lying to the consumer. Shame on Apple for making a crap product. Shame on anyone who thinks I've done something "wrong".
So... what do you think we did? That's right, we found a store with a no questions asked return policy, brought another iPod mini and immediatelly return the broken iPod mini (cash back, baby!). I don't really give a flying fsck about getting my little 10% rebate on my "next apple purchase" or making a bunch of class-action lawyers rich. I just want my GF to be able to listen to music!
Should I feel bad? No!
Capitalism is a lot more corrupt and broken than most consumers imagine. Because there is an inherently unlevel playing field that consumers must take to when making purchases, it is more than fair that they use all the advantages that the market place might inadvertantly offer to them to make up for the the bullshit that most stores and manufactures getaway with when selling goods and services.
Valid points all. Not all retailers are that incompetent. The ones that are, will get killed by the scammers when the competent ones fight back (thereby flushing the scammers to the guy down the street). Front line retail is hell, the scammers are part of it. If you don't shut them down, you will eventually go bankrupt. Would I want to pay a restocking fee because the USB cable I bought was too short ? Hell no, but it would make me select the product more carefully next time.
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
Did you not read my post? I said they'd likely be cool about it if he returned the money, not cool about him stealing. I know this is slashdot, but you could at least read the entire post before going off on a completely misguided rant...
In any case, a good friend would pressure their friend to do the right thing. It's pretty cowardly to just stop talking to the guy and turn him in. That's more like something you'd do to someone you hate.
I went to home depot to return some light dimmers because as my wife told me "we don't like them" they were unopened so no problem.
But the guy in front of me is returning wood stain. The gal at the return check stand opened up every one of his one gallon cans and verified that there was actual wood stain in them. They had wood stain in them. When it was my turn I asked her how often they get cans that don't have wood stain in them returned. Her reply was all the time. we get ones that are empty, have dirt in them, water, colored water, assorted chemicals..... I was truely surprised.
"It isn't just individuals to blame, think Enron, Worldcom, and Haliburton. There is a corporate ethos that if you can get away with it, do it. The corporation and profit is our culture, and culture is shredding our social fabric. Observe the result."
:Zen and the art of making a living.page xxxi.
Actually it is individuals to blame. From that particular manager to the individuals that ran those companies. Behind every misdeed you've ever heard about is the individual. Every society that's historically fallen, has fallen from within. From the moral corruption of the individual, to the destruction of the family. Flowing outward and upward. Until humanity acknowledges original sin and it's ramification. We will forever be plagued, and it will grow exponentially worse because our science has outreached our grasp. Making true "knowledge is power" while handing a gun to a species that still hasn't learned how to handle the bows and arrows it already has.
I recommed reading
Agreed here as well. At least he could have said, "dude, that is uncool. Go bring that sh*t back and tell them you made a mistake or I'll turn your punk ass in." But instead he listened to his former friend brag about his new loot, nodding and maybe saying nothing other than, "hmm." Then like a coward went and told the authorities without so much as a warning. Weak.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Some friend you are. Tell us your real name so if we meet you in real life we know not to be friendly with you. Anyone who grasses his friend up to the police is no friend at all. You're the lowest of the low. You'd pick the side of a faceless corporation before your own friends.
Let me ask this: would you behave the same if your 'friend' was pirating MP3s or downloading TV programmes?
the flip side of the coin
He did the right thing. I wouldn't HAVE friends that pulled this kind of crap. Apparently there are others that feel the same way.
The more I read your response, the more I think you're a complete loser. It would have to be a pretty pathetic person who steals something, and then, rather than face the consequences like a man, goes and beats up his friend for bringing it to someone's attention. He should be THANKING this guy.
Don't like a place's actions? Don't buy there. You don't have the right to commit fraud.
Now, as to your actual points:
1. No reputable B&M store does this. They do make mistakes. They are legitimate mistakes.
2, 3. Rebates are offered by the manufacturer, not the store. Take it up with them.
4. Yeah, I'm sure you're right. I don't buy them.
5. That's part and parcel of pricematch policies. Places want to offer them, but they don't really want to get into price wars. Deal with it. If they didn't have these outs for the pricematch policies, they probably wouldn't offer them, so I don't think you're missing out on something anyway.
6. Fry's no longer puts returned stuff back on the shelf without labelling it as returned. Not because they are angels, but because they got remaed over it in the courts. Best Buy, on the other hand, still seems to do so. I personally don't generally buy these marked boxes, because of the hassles you mention. Now, on the other hand, the one time I did, I bought a $500 video card, when I decided to take it back (defective), the serial number on the card did not match the serial number on the box (not my fault). They had to get a manager, but did they accuse me of stealing? No.
7. That's a gray area, given that you can return anything you buy there, I don't see why this is a huge problem for the customer. And besides, don't buy crap you don't need.
I shop at Fry's a lot, and my experiences have been good in general. Returns are slow there, but partially that's because they allow you to return anything (a good thing in general) and people are there returning BS, like video cards they couldn't overclock enough. Or they are returning something they bought from Fry's just to keep for 3 days while the one they ordered from newegg at a lower price arrives.
In general, I have more problem with the other customers than the store.
But again, in the end, if you don't like the place, don't buy there. You don't get to commit fraud as some kind of vigilantism.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
> OK, so let me get this suggestion of yours.
> Because retailers are so incompetent they are
> unable to prevent themselves from being scammed,
> it's easier to penalise everyone making a
> legitimate return, in the hopes of deterring
> the minority of thieves (who I am sure will
> find away around your restocking fee anyway)?
Are you a simplistic moron, or do you just play one on T.V.?
NEWS FLAHSH!!!!
That's *EXACTLY* what happens for every unexpected cost of doing business... it gets passed directly on to the CONsumer.
Jesues... what! did you guys just fall off a soviet turnup truck or did you just venture out of your parents basement for more than 15 miniutes?
I've never seen a news report that goes something like this "Area man purchases new TV. He pays for it with a check that was backed by the proper amount of money in his own account. The transaction went smoothly and he enjoys his new TV."
Don't be fooled by the media. While retail outlets are the victims of theft and other types of criminal activity, the vast majority of transactions are not faudulent. Store returns have long been allowed because it brings people into the stores. With the behemoth corporations like WalMart taking over, they don't really need to do anything to draw people in anymore. They'll use whatever excuse they need to to make it sound like they're only doing it because they've been forced into it.
Don't believe the hype.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
you missed the sarcasm bit on that post.
read it again, with your humor detctor on.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
If someone picks your pocket, would you preffer I tell you or that I just ignore it?
Are you a simplistic moron, or do you just play one on T.V.?
NEWS FLAHSH!!!!
You know that American "culture" has had it when even the people are talking in soundbytes...
That's *EXACTLY* what happens for every unexpected cost of doing business... it gets passed directly on to the CONsumer.
First I'm not a US citizen and refuse the term consumer. I'm a customer who actually thinks before making a purchase. Second, business has every right to TRY and pass its costs on. The market, not the board of directors, will determine if they succeed or not. However it's unrealistic to assume that if you raise your price, your profit will remain the same, since you do have competitors who might accept to sell their goods at a lower price than you in order to see you out of business. As a customer I can choose between competitors. Your assumption that I can't makes me wonder about your choice of reference with regards to the soviet turnup truck and if that was from some intimate experience.
or did you just venture out of your parents basement for more than 15 miniutes?
It's amazing that not even your feeble attempt at a personal insult is original. I suggest you try reading and travel, to expand your vocabulary and experience. I made a valid point and your attempt to refute it was nothing more than a pathetic banter. I wish you well.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Or, as we did at the last store I worked at when idiots tried this sort of thing, they can tell you to stop wasting their time with your crap, give you the phone number for head office's legal department, and tell you to discuss the legality of their policies with a real lawyer. The they will mock you for weeks to come, and tell storie of what an ass you are to other customers, even pointing you out as you walk past the store.
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
Defective items should be returned for full refund or exact replacement under warranty or fit for use laws. I think a restocking fee on items the consumer just changed their mind about is fair enough.
I sometimes buy from places that don`t offer exchanges because I don`t want a product that someone else has been using and then returned.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
You don't have the right to commit fraud.
He never said anything of the kind, so get off your high horse and stfu. His point was that stores that commit fraud themselves shouldn't make noises about other people's shenanigans. Sort of like baseball owners complaining about how greedy players are, when the best owner is 100x greedier than greediest player.
Rebates are offered by the manufacturer, not the store. Take it up with them.
Bzzt. Not when the store advertizes the after rebate price in letters with the out-the-door price in small print.
With dirtbag friends like you who needs enemies?
> Is downloading unlisenced music wrong? Yes. Is it shoplifting? No. Copyright violation is immoral and illegal. It is not theft.
I disagree about it being immoral, even as I recognize it as being illegal.
And I practice what I preach--I share my ideas and creative works freely.
This isn't news. I for one work as a manager in a large retail clothing establishment. We've seen all the aforementioned ORC and other retail crime issues plus many, many more. When someone's job is to steal, they come up with any number of ways to get around good technology, good intentions, and "great customer service." Truth be told, most of the the associates I have wouldn't notice an ORC issue if it hit them in the face. It's not that they're not well intentioned, it's that they're trying to get the customer in and out with a smile on their face, and the people committing these crimes exploit that and many other fact of running a retail store.
If after doing what research I can online, I'm still not 100% sure that it will work out (for example, a new camera that doesn't have online reviews, or a new subrevision of a card that previously was supported under OpenBSD, but might not work if they changed the chipset), then I'll buy from a retail store with a good return policy.
There are four ways a business (be it a "brick and mortar" store, online, etc) can get my business:
- Supply the products I need now, something I can't wait for shipping (replacement parts, etc).
- Carry products not easily found elsewhere.
- Better prices (Total cost of purchase, taking into account sales tax, shipping, the hassle of the transaction.)
- Outstanding customer service, including return policy.
#1 can be fulfilled in a couple of unobvious ways, from the "pick up at at your local Border's" deal Amazon has, to driving twenty miles out of my way to pick up computer hardware at the warehouse of a national mail-order giant.I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
A few weeks back I was in Wal-Mart and witnessed a scruffy, middle aged couple trying to return 5 huge bags of potting soil. All of the bags were opened and resealed haphazardly, dirt spilling out everywhere. By the conditions of the bags it looked as if they had purchased the potting soil, used it and refilled the bags with regular old dirt (which is probably not too far off from the original product).
The clerk went back and forth with them however in the end a manager decided that Wal-Mart would not accept the return, primarily because the "customers" had no receipts and Wal-Mart didn't even sell that brand of soil. Nevertheless, the couple barked and moaned and let the manager know they were going to hit every Wal-Mart in the area until someone gave them a refund.
Since the manager wisely contacted the other stores in their area, I'm assuming the couple never got all that far with their dirt merchant scheme. Still, it's amazing the lengths some people will go to.
I'd prefer you tell me. Your friend would prefer you didn't. Who's more important, some slashdot troll you don't know, or a friend of yours?
Loyalty is more important than legality. It's not like he raped or killed someone, all he did was jank a video card. It's not right, but you should tell him that, not fuck him over. Do you report all your friends for jaywalking too? Downloading music? Roms for games they own but is still illegal? Skipping commercials with tivo in places thats been criminalized?
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
This retail scam is small change compared to the millions doing .....
It's called getting your kids on free education at $7000.00 a year + food stamps $4000.00 a year + other handouts at thousands a year and being an illegal alien from mexico.
Even though the media says that illegal aliens want jobs that no one takes, they pay less than 10% of the handouts they receive.
If you live in California, Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas you pay about $800 a year per person for all handouts to illegal aliens + keeping the criminal ones (rapists, murders, etc) in prison.
>if those speakers are so PRO, then why dont they have built in protector circuits and temperature monitors to prevent overheating?
>Let me guess, made in china.
Let me guess, not designed in China.
You must be one hell of an economist. The worst in over 200 years you say. Wow, that is bad. I thought things were rough in the seventies. Double digit inflation, mortgage rates around 20%. From what I hear there was a period in the 1930's that was a bit rough, what did they call it, the great depression. Unemployment of 25% vs. @ 5% now. We definitely have it bad. What do you suggest we do to save ourselves? Do you have any other brilliant advice for us?
Yes, you herd me, that is exactly what I am saying. It's too bad you posted AC, because this is a serious reply. If you take all the federal, state, housing, commercial, credit-card, misc, and trade debt that comes to about 400K for every family in the USA. Then take all the long term public obligations like Social Security, Medicade, Public schools etc ... that comes to about another 400K for family. It doesn't take much of an imagination to figure out that they are never make it happen without default or printing up money.
Now take a look at the housing bubble, going up over 20% per year in San Diego where I live! WTF? Pay isn't going up 20% per year, the eonomy isn't growing 20% per year, population and other forces aren't growing 20% per year. Now the news is saying that the savings rate is statistically at 0 , and trade into the ports has drastically dropped off, large layofs are happening everywhere, and inside stock holders at large home building companies are selling off large stakes. It doesn't take much of a genius to figure out that housing is on schedule to crash hard, and it will take down half the over leveraged banks in the USA with it.
And I didn't even mention the over 70 trillion in derivatives or risks/consequences of loosing the dollar as the world reserve currency.
As I said. We are heading full speed toward a hyperinflationary depression. The worst economic failure in US history. And I do have advice. get the f**k out of variable rate debt no matter what and the housing market and the bond market and most all stocks, and buy lots of silver and gold - or almost any other commodity that is not leveraged in debt right now.
That is not the case. Vendor fraud and administrative error are also included as segments of the remaining shrinkage along with the customer shoplifting and employee theft even on the specific site linked in the post you are responding to.
Sure she did, she also told me not take cookies from the cookie car. However, the first time my little sister ran and told her I did so, my sister got scolded (as well as me of course). but she got the time out. Anyways, kicking someone's ass for narc'n you out is compeltly acceptable in high school, and my hands woudln't be considered deadly weapons If I was packing a roll of quarters, but thanks for the compliment. Look it's obvious everyone has a different take on the tattle tale issue, but bottom line, is at a minimum you go to the person first.
At a CT store I work at, just 2 weeks ago someone had returned an expensive 4 person tent that was bought from the store. As usual the silly cashier girl did not fully check out the tent, she just accepted the return as is in the box, which was returned from an old guy and his wife.
Well, as it turns out, the manager of the sports department goes to fully check out this tent in the box, opens it up, and what does she find? She find's the old geezer's false teeth and dental work. She was so pissed off she went and showed the cashier girl what she found and basically gave her shit for not fully checking out the return, never mind accepting the return, especially since the guy had bought the tent for the weekend, and then returned it after using it.
I couldn't agree more. A friend of mine returned his killed (a failed mod attempt shortly after getting it) PS2 for a new one. Did the person working the return counter notice the sticker with "void" on it, or the lack of one? No. Electronics manufacturers need to work on educating stores on how to tell if something shouldn't be returnable. And I agree with your idea. I was just thinking about RF for a type of embedded tracking device, but that could open up new problems. Ever cover stuff you bought with a jacket or put it in the trunk of your car while shopping so you didn't have to drive home or carry them around with you? Unless you have RF-shielded jackets and trunks, Thieves wouldn't need to see something to know to steal it (I'm assuming it would be possible to create a device to scan for RF transmitters and figure out what they are to).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Ummm ... no. There's always something you can do about it.
Thieves are like viruses. If a particular theft is profitable (fake receipts, for example), they'll repeat it and exploit it. As more thieves learn about it, more thieves will attempt that theft. So the stores will adapt, and put in some technology to defeat the faked receipts.
But the thieves also learn and adapt, and start looking for new ways to defraud retailers. So the stores learn and counter.
The point I'm making is that if a store "stands still" and does nothing about a particular type of fraud, then that store will get sucked dry as more and more thieves learn about the fraud. There is no such thing as a "tiny loss per quarter". Maybe the first quarter, yes, but by the second, it will double. Left unchecked, in a year it'll be a hemmorhage of red ink.
Investing the money wisely in anti-theft technology (of all sorts, both hardware systems like RFID and software systems like giant databases) does pay off. As I mentioned, the ongoing frauds need to be stopped. Also the fraud tactics that are discovered by one retailer are quickly shared with others via consultants and professional organizations. These new threats also need to be countered (or prepared for) as quickly as possible to minimize losses.
As an earlier poster mentioned, the retailers keep the numbers secret. However, you're correct in estimating that anti-theft technologies can cost large organizations millions of dollars per year. And they pay for themseleves. Think about that.
John
My favorite was when people would come to the cash register with one product but the upc code of another. It was sometimes blatantly obvious that this was the case when the $180 hard drive they were buying shows $30 Calc on the monitor...
I can recall ONE time in the past 5 years (where I've actually had enough money to just buy stuff, isntead of school etc) where I've returned things and needed to pay a restocking fee. I can remember a few more times where a company has a restocking fee and I haven't had to pay it.
The ONE time was when I ordered an LCD monitor, but changed my mind on the model after it was shipped. That's my fault, my problem. The amount of money for the restocking fee (about $15) was worth it -- better than spending the full price and having an item I didn't want.
The numerous other times I haven't had to pay restocking fees are all based on actual problems. Item's defective when you open it up, or something's missing? Take it back. They'll exchange it, no problem. I honestly can't think of any stores off the top of my head that doesn't offer at least a 30 day exchange/credit policy for an item that is defective. For many items of any non-trivial value, they even have manufacturer warranties, where you pay to ship it off and they'll ship off a new thing or fix your thing.
In all of the later cases, when something is wrong with the product, the consumer has very little problem getting it dealt with. When people just decide they don't want it, or realize they don't have the money, or whatever, well, should the retailer cover that? I honestly don't have a problem with a "15% fee cos you changed your mind" policy.
(of course, then you'll still have people who accidentally or intentionally damage goods and try to fradulently force retailers to replace the goods. I suppose those'll still be around regardless of any of these methods...)
Just because its matched to the amplification doesn't mean he still can't blow it up. What if he changes the crossover frequency? what if he's clipping his imputs?? therefore making the Speaker have the flat peaks and heating up the coil even more.
When he brings the system back in with the crossover frequency in the incorrect place, the Gains on his inputs cranked, while i had left it at the correct settings and informed him of the speakers crossover settings. When he says he knows how hot to run his levels i take a customers word for it. You heard how good they sounded when they were set up correctly. Not my fault you didn't take in what i just said.
Speaker damage is caused my more than just incorrect amplification. There are many other factors that go into it.
there's also the bait and switch scheme where electronics break (human error or item error), but either way, the warranties over and they're left with a dead piece of equipment. people would then buy the exact same item, making sure there's a return period, swap it, and return it. now they have a brand new unbroken toy and didn't have to pay a cent.
HD Trailers
We always think our lies are victimless crimes. But the accumulation of lies leads to terrible inconvenience. The breakdown of trust has a certain hurt factor, even if it's not something that can be reported to the crime bureau's.
Kant's categorial imperative is a useful tool for avoiding such moral pitfalls. Maybe it should be required reading in white collar prisons.
You were a moderator with 5 points. You should have read the moderator guidelines before you did any moderating
47(?) states have adopted the UCC, mostly in near complete form. If yours happens to be one of the ones that hasn't, or they left out that chapter, write a nastygram to your local state representative.
I'd rat him out if he was stealing from individuals, not multi billion dollar corps who already price in such thefts.
How many tracks and videos have you downloaded so I can rat you out to the RIAA and MPAA, respectively?
Seriously, if you feel it is ok to cheat a large company, then you better not complain if they end up cheating you. One wrong does not justify another wrong.
I hope they drop the full force of the law on you.
And these days, there is no limit to the law, so good luck.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
You chose to shop at a bix box store. Anybody with a brain knows that they offer no customer service. You got what you paid for. Next time, you may want to think about doing business with your local retailer, that A. Actually needs and wants your business and B. Actually offers real customer service.
I don't respond to AC's.
It's your fault, dipshit, for continuing to shop at these stores. You KNOW that you get no customer service, but you're whining like you deserve some. I say "Waaaah" to you. You get exactly what you pay for. If you want customer service, shop at your local retailer that actually needs and wants your business.
I don't respond to AC's.
What a cool idea! I should try this myself!
Thanks slashdot!
Why is this modded flamebait, it is a legitimate statement?
And stuff in China is often inferior and MADE WITH SLAVE LABOR, so stop thinking your so PC for modding it down.
Stuff should be protected.
I have fans (not CPU fans, people fans) that say thermally protected so if the motor stalls it doesn't burn.
Good computer hardware won't be vulnerable to a "killer poke" (damage via software - don't tell me that doesn't exist - I know how to kill a C64, almost did by accident).
Years ago I saw a stereo with auto-short circuit protection, it'd fail to start and make the power led red if something was wrong.
Every house has circuit breakers or fuses.
Cars have anti-redlining limiters.
Etc.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The other problem, which is probably just as big, is that people will come in with products that the employee in the department knows is fraud, but the person pitches a fit, the store manager is called, and the store manager, who wants to keep customers happy says to return it even though it's obviously a scam.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
Even as a semi-serious amateur, film and processing cost well over $300 a year.
If i get two years out of my digital rebel then i'll be up on the $800 it cost me.
If the numbers don't make sense to you then that's fine, but for a great many people they DO make sense and your generalization doesn't really help.
I kid you not, my friend manages a home depot in Alberta, Canada. They not only have people return Christmas trees in early January, they have enough of them do it to have to keep the tree area on their lot for a few weeks to accept the returns. They do take the returns, btw; the theory is that if someone is that hard up to need to return a tree, they'll let them.
"I hate to think how many people out there innocently get screwed by these places because they aren't the obnoxious stubborn bitch that I am."
I didn't have to be an SOB when something happened with my merchant. I simply shop with a credit-card that'll go to bat for me.
Why should I tire myself out, when someone else will do it for me?
If I was that friend, you could expect a punch in the face.
I would like you enough, that I would take it upon myself to teach you a lesson: that friends don't snitch on their friends.
Snitching is what your enemy does to you. Don't worry, though. I'm not your enemy. I'm your friend, and I'm only hitting you a couple of times. Just to make the lesson stick. If I wasn't such a good friend, then I'd be your enemy, and your beating would be much more severe.
I can only assume that you don't have any brothers or sisters, and that you've never had a serious friendship. Acting like a five year old couldn't be helping this.
damaged by dogma
They decide that X% of a vendors products will likely be returned, and flat out tell the vendor that they'll pay X% less than the agreed price for the goods.
That way the vendor eats the entire cost for the returns, whether they are returned or not. I'm pretty sure that they would adjust X on some annual basis to reward vendors who improve QC, but the reality is that it costs walmart nothing to take back the product that you broke.
Just do a chargeback (you did buy with a credit card, I hope!).
Or sue in small claims court - good chance you'll win by default.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
You two should start a support group.
damaged by dogma
Seriously, I hope Meets takes some of the responses he's gotten here as a warning of what will probably happen if he turns in friends with any frequency. Turning in friends (who you should more technically now call enemies) is a very dangerous thing.
damaged by dogma
Yeah, when it turns out one of my friends is a moral pit in the ground, I tend not to really like them as much any more, for some reason.
I've been friends with some people for 15+ years, and I know that they have my back, and I have theirs. I sure as hell wouldn't turn them in because they ripped off a BB or CC for $450.00
Then you are clearly a miserable piece of shit, and your friends probably are, too.
wrong. 'shrinkage', as a term, covers everything from shoplifting, being shorted on goods shipped-in versus goods paid for, employee theft, to typos on shipping/receiving, etc.
I worked for a big west coast retail record chain,before going to warner bros, and the 'pro' record 'boosters' could do in 15 minutes, more 'damage' than 500 ordinary steal-a-record amateurs...any day of the week.
Is it 'ethically' okay to steal one item, instead of 500? No. But to call a one-off shoplifter 'unethical' is a judgement call based on the 'ethics' of the 'judge', because if a kid thinks it's 'okay to steal from a big store', he's entirely within 'his own ethical belief structure'. Period.
A 'better' blanket statement (still debatable) would revolve around morals, not ethics, and, to be even more solid, would hinge on 'legality', the ramifications of taking 'shortcuts', etc. Ethics, by their nature, are subjective.
(many places only give employees 10% off, if that... It barely negates sales tax)
I know that one reason many big-box chains don't give larger employee discounts is that if they gave more than 10% they would actually lose money on many items. This is also the reason that Target, for instance, doesn't let you use a non-Target credit card in conjunction with your employee discount...the extra few percent they'd lose in CC fees would push many sales into losses for them.
I would never argue that they shouldn't pay more, though...I'm with you on that. Especially because while people won't generally work harder for a better employee discount, many people WILL work harder for more pay. So if they paid more, they would see some of that money returned to them in the form of better productivity.
You may be buying a returned item anyway. Having worked at a couple of places where the policy was "all sales final," my experience was that they would still take returns if a customer bitched enough about the policy. If the item was still in saleable condition, the next step was to put it through the shrink wrap machine (if necessary) and stick it back on the shelf.
For sale: one sig space, gently used. Inquire for details.
Can't a customer buy retail and buy e-bay, swap, and return?
And I suppose you, dear Anonymous Coward, have never had a lapse in judgment. If you go on eliminating friends any time they make a moral slip (especially when you're even counting ones that aren't directly against you!) you'll soon find yourself with no friends at all.
A true friend is infinitely forgiving, but always points out when their friend is doing something that is morally wrong.
It's gone up so much in fact, that instead of trying everything they can to find loopholes in the law or workarounds, retailers are now successfully changing laws so that what they do is no longer illegal, and the legal things we did are now illegal.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
I think that as corporations get bigger and bigger and want more and more profit. People will sympathise with them less and less and see nothing wrong with ripping them off. I know I barely care about top level executives and shareholders losing some profits that should be going to employees. Most employees of big chain stores have actually told me where to steal or even acted like they were keeping an eye on me If in fact I was and gave me "all-clear" signals. This was'nt limited to 16-18 year olds. I'm not amazed this contempt for big companies is limited employees that hate thier job and rip off and steal from the place constantly. Either safegaurds will be put in place that will cause more bussiness to go to competition or they will bite it.
Wouldn't it be just as effective of a lesson for the friend to tell him "Either you give that money back to the store or I will cease being your friend and I will tell the store myself"? I believe that's what the GP was suggesting he should have done. That would have given his friend a chance to set things straight without possibly fucking up his life permanently. The lesson would still be learned, and the damage would be a lot less.
I would hope that if my friend thought I was in the wrong about something he would have the balls to set me straight, instead of just cutting me off and turning me in. One who turns on their friends so quickly over a lapse in judgment is not much of a friend at all.
Ask anyone who works in a store. They have as many horror stories about customers as you about retailers.
The simple fact is that there are some evil and selfish people around. And they engage both in selling and buying.
If I was that friend, you could expect a punch in the face.
If you were that friend, you'd be a theiving cock-sucking bastard, so it would be no surprise that you'd also try to punch him in the face. What you'd need is a bullet to the back of the head, thereby removing your worthless, theiving ass from the world.
Remind me to never be friends with you.
There's no place like ~/
I agree. Ratting someone out isn't cool. ESPECIALLY if they are your friend. Noone likes a tattletail.
There's no place like ~/
It seems like our entire economy is based top to bottom on how much you can screw somebody. An electrician's car breaks down, the mechanic screws him for just as much money as he thinks he can get away with, but that's ok because the electrician will screw you for just as much money as he can possibly suck out of you. And then all three of you get sick and go to a freaking doctor...who screws all three of you and your insurance company, if any of the bunch is lucky enough to have insurance. And then out of this pool of crap, we elect people to office, who promptly start screwing the public for as much money as they think they can possibly get away with without winding up swinging from a rope.
I finally broke down and watched most of Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight (ironically, ripped to my hard drive, off of a rented DVD), and I must say that my blood was boiling half-way through it.
I swear I sometimes wonder how the US has made it as long as it has. It is hard to believe we can remain competitive in the world economy, when so much of our money didn't come from any actual service or product, but rather comes from screwing people. I hope people enjoy it while they can, because one of these days the bubble is going to burst.
It reminds me of the excellent movie, the Devils Advocate. Only in our economy, the devil just isn't a lawyer, he is a doctor, a mechanic, the retail stores, the RIAA/MPAA, the politicians, the insurance companies, the salesmen, the retail stores, the manufacturers, the customers etc. etc., and each and every one of them is setting out to drown us in a sea of their dishonesty.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
Technically, they would be con men, running a fraud operation. Although some may put that under the general umbrella of stealing, legally it is a whole different ball of wax. And it is generally a crime that is more punishable than pure theft. Kinda like downloading a song over a peer to peer network vs. just stealing the CD from a store. Guess which one is a felony?
The bait and switch tactics are here too, but this is a cleverly designed system.
The insurance that they sell you on a car rental is just like an extended warranty at best buy or circuit city. You don't need it - it's pure profit for them.
The problem I had recently, was that they kept me waiting so I was in a rush, and after the sales droid offered me the insurance twice, which I refused, he said "just initial by the x's" to get you on the road. Despite my refusal of the insurance, he PUT THE X'S BY THE YES BOX.
This is convenient, because if I notice, it's "just a mistake" but if I don't notice, it's pure profit (and probably a commission) for them, and they have you on a signed and initialed contract, so you have to pay.
They offered me a free rental, but it was a manager scribbling on a business card, and I know when I bring it in, they will not honor it ("I don't know what this is!")
It cost me 25 USD. A cheap lesson on sketchy contract practices.
Beware of Enterprise Rent A Car - a little too 'enterprising' for my liking.
I've had the opportunity to do this twice in the last week.
One would have been replacing most of the higher grade cabling with lower grade without much of an issue.
This is mostly because the product is in blister pack, and the store manager wasn't go to get down and dirty with it (I always make sure my returns are prestine).
The other product in question was a pcmcia card, which I also returned. I could have easily of replaced it, and once again gone unnoticed by the way the return was examined.
In my minds eye its fairly petty and I'd rather concentrate on the big game as somewhat fulltime social engineer. Seeing a mark like that though is very tempting...
hmmmm... might just work, like a Ice Cream Truck, But do it in cold climates where Ice Cream wouldn't sell, and use a car... the Cookie Car..
People would bring stuff in they obviously bought at a store in town and demand a refund.
Because I am a military brat, your wife's anecdote makes no sense to me. Military exchanges do not charge tax and steeply discount their items. Buying something off-base and returning it to a military exchange would, in almost every case, result in a loss to the person doing the returning.
I guess it depends on the local laws. In my city and state that kid would probably have gone to jail (they're really tough around here on pretty much everything but driving drunk). I would never do that to a friend without first confronting them, the juevy jails are tough and the punishment sure wouldn't fit the crime.
Then again I went to university with a guy from Canada. He told me he used to sell drugs as a teen and raise hell, got arrested numerous times but never got worse than probation and community service. If the poster was from somewhere similar than he probably did the right thing.
The posters who say the thief should have beat up the snitch are wrong, though that is exactly what would happen when I was growing up. They are obviously kids and most of their opinions will change when they get older. It's hard to pass judgement on the OP because he didn't provide many details. If I knew (ie friends with) a rapist or molester or robber then I would certainly turn them in. If I knew a drug user, shoplifter, problem drinker with a short fuse, I would do my best to convince to get help. And if I knew a fraudster like the OP's friend then I would probably just stop being friends with him, maybe tell his family. But my reaction is based on the place I grew up and the consequences I'd expect him to face.
Yes, I'm sure the people who lived through Soviet communism and the McCarthy hearings would think that was a wonderful idea.
There's a good chance that the guy learned a lesson and was stopped from a life of crime.
/sarcasm
Why yes, first he's cheating Best Buy on a video card, the next day he's selling cocaine to pre-schoolers.
Oh how I love blaming the victim!
Oh how I love that dead horse cliche! It is extremely possible to be the "victum" of something and yet bear responsiblity for what happened to you. Like a drunk driver crashing into your car, injuring you, but you were a dumbass and weren't wearing your seatbelt.
If a customer is returning a $500 item, it damn sure is the responsiblitiy of the person at the customer service desk to open the box and check it. Even if you know the person isn't a cheat, you want to make sure all the cables/software/misc widgets are in there.
And you advocate that he should not have been punished at all?
Why do you guys keep repeating this crap over and over as if someone has EVER SAID ANYTHING LIKE THIS! Here's a hint: no one has ever said that someone who commits a crime is blameless, so stop using that straw man argument. Please.
Of course, ripping of a store on a $500 item is wrong. But so is ratting out your friend when it's not your business is also very wrong.
Actually quite the opposit. The kid was under 18 so he only got a slap on the wrist, in other words: He may have learned a lesson and don't do it again.
Not likely. Think about it: is the kids reaction going to be "OMG, my friend was so right to turn me in, saving me from a life of crime selling cocaine to pre-schoolers, I am saved!", or, "my (former) friend is a @#$%@#$%@# dushbag!!!!"
If the parent was high on a morality kick and so pleased with himself for being capable of turning this kid in, then he should have been equally capable of calling the guy up and saying "take back the card or I tell the store". As it was the kid only learned to be more choosy in who he calls a friend, and the parent probably earned a pissed off enemy.
I am not going to stand complacent of some wrong just because you are my friend. Being fair goes both ways.
So be a good friend and call him an asshole, and demand to know wtf he was thinking. But don't rat on him when it's not your business.
Theft, and assault, are both fine
Go back and see where anyone said those were "fine", or you are a dumbass. Here, I'll save you the time: you are a dumbass.
Teaching you to take responsibility for your own actions is wrong
The parent didn't teach the kid jack squat. That would have been sitting down with the kid, saying "wtf were you thinking", and threatening to call the store if need be.
At what point do you "rat him out"? Do you wait for him to rape or kill someone?
At which point do you stop ratting him out? After you are throwing people into Soviet gulags, but before you've started drawing and quartering them in a Spanish Inquisition?
Just answering one ludicrous straw man with another.
The attitude that I've seen displayed by several posts that "it's OK, the store screwed me so I'll get them, etc" is growing more and more prevalent. One other big problem with it is that the small business gets caught in the middle. I've run a small ($800,000 annual sales) retail specialty store for 10 years. We strive to provide good customer service, and always honor our posted warranties and returns. Increasingly, we fight against the "easy" return policies of stores that take anything and everything back. In May and June, I will have fully HALF of the camcorder batteries I sell come back, bought and used by those with graduations and weddings. Customers who will insist they bought an item from your store when it clearly has a "Radio Shack" label on it. (No I am not Radio Shack) Others who say they just bought the item a week ago and the date code on the item indicates it is 3 years old, then blame you for selling "old stock". The problem? In most of these conversations I will hear the phrase, "Wal Mart would take it back!" Unfortunately, the small business doesn't have the resources of the big box store to cover these kinds of losses. You end up giving in to avoid the threat of having to deal with negative reputation, but the sales volume doesn't make up for it. And you can forget fancy schemes of receipt tracking, etc. They are way too expensive for the small business. As you can see, we are caught in the middle.
Why no temperature sensors? That could compromise the sound quality of the speaker itself. Not my much, (if any), but audiophile types are picky.
Why no "protector circuits"? Any measurement of the signal can degrade the signal. In addition, the cutoff device itself (by necessisty a transistor-based device) would degrade the signal.
Let me guess, knows nothing about audio.
SirWired
Every post I make begins with the assumption P=~P.
Coward
damaged by dogma
There was a Target store a few miles from me, in a pretty shady part of town. The store always had about 10-15 off-duty cops walking around in plainclothes for theft prevention. A couple of years ago, that store lost $11 MILLION DOLLARS to shoplifters, That's $30k per day on average. Of course, some if it most surely was the employees also. Someone mentioned in another thread that there was a study that showed 50% of theft is done by employees.
A friend of mine was a manager of another store closeby and told me the story.
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Damn, I live in Texas. No cookie car for me :(
I'm not talking about turning people in for their opinions. I'm talking about turning people in for having purposefully done something wrong, for having given no thought to anyone but themselves. It's a very different matter.
I would report anyone who causes DIRECT financial loss to a person or other entity. Potential loss of sale is a whole nother ball of wax.
Fuck yes, wrong is wrong. If it were up to me, everyone would get the death penalty for stealing even a loaf of fucking bread to feed their fucktarded family, and it wouldn't be just the fucking thief either, it would be the whole fucktarded family.
It's not hard to see why when most employees are paid and treated so poorly. When I was younger I worked for Zellers as a stockboy doing night shifts and the managers were basically running a jail, you couldn't go out of the store, you had to buy food from their apporved vending machines.
You were not aloud to bring in bagged food/lunches for the possibility you could hide stolen items in it, you were not allowed to leave the store during your lunch break, etc. One time I forgot my money and I asked if I could pay for the pop/food next shift and my manager was just a complete asshole about it and said tough luck. So you can be damn sure I was mad, this and other stupid management rules went on for a while there and I got fed up and started stealing shit just to blow off steam for being treated so poorly - being forced to buy my lunches there, as if they weren't paying me as little as possible and STILL trying to milk/recoupe in a sneaky fashion the wages of their employees by such ridiculous rules.
I have no regrets about my stupid spur of the moment and hotheaded theivery but I soon left thereafter as I was disgusted by my employer and somewhat by myself at what I had rashly done. You can be damn sure that businesses are as equally as culpable for the theft of their employee's inflict on them since businesses are creating work and economic conditions insofar that they are just asking for it. The false line of reasoning in bourgoise capitalism is that capitalism is amoral, it certainly is not since economic and business practices are controlled, subservient to and driven by people. Economic reality is social manmade construct.
If you want to stop employee theft, stop treating your employee's like shit and give them a reason to trust you and place their confidence in you, so you your employees don't feel like they are being so bloody oppressed. Businesses should expect evil when they dish out evil on people in a working environment. They are just as underhanded as their the thieves, IMO this just shows us what is wrong with many capitalist enterprises where worker supply is so excessive that these businesses have complete exploitive domination over less fortunate people.
Sometimes I let a cool sounding argument take precedence over factual correctness. I'll try to cut down on that, sorry...
I see what your getting at and in some cases I might agree. But in this case (from what the OP said) it seems the "friend" did know *exactly* what they were doing, planned and executed the fraud and boasted about it. Maybe I am a bit tough compared to some, but it seems pretty clear cut to me.
Perhaps it's because being on the receiving end of attempted scams *every* *single* *day* (usually from people so stupid I am surpised if they can talk), that I don't have much patience for scammers. They act like your best friend in the world while they try and extort money from you but quickly change their tune when they realise that it's not going to work. They smile even less when the cops arrive. But they do put effort into pleading and begging (they still think they can get something out of you) they tell whatever lies they can think up "I've got a wife and three... no four, four! kids to feed". They act really sorry to your face, but as soon as they are out the door they are back to thinking about themselves.
If I let them go they just try it on again with somebody else. I have given second chances in the past, but nothing comes of it. It is sad, but nothing produces results like a good kick in the ass.
Well, mister "someone should do something about it, just not me", care to enlighten us as to what should he have done? Pray to God someone else will catch him? Geez.
He said the amount of fraud committed by customers is less than the fraud comitted by stores. The only reason to make relative measures like that is if you are in essence, he's saying go ahead and commit all the fraud you want, you're just 'evening the score'. And you say the same thing.
Well, it isn't legal, it isn't right. And I don't believe him anyway.
If you think you're being defrauded, don't go back. You've protected yourself from the fraud and hurt the retailer at the same time.
Now as to rebates, the other poster was referring to Fry's, so let's start from that.
When Fry's advertises an after-rebate price, and the rebate is denied, they will give you the difference out of their pocket. Again, they do this not because they are angels, but because it is how the law works. So, you either get that price in big print from a rebate, or you get it from Fry's. I don't see what you are complaining about.
Personally, I don't pay much attention to rebates anymore. They often don't pay them, and you have to pay tax on the big price anyway, so I only pay attention to them when they are very large (percentage-wise). I often buy something that costs a few bucks more than another advertised AR price because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Also, if you'be ever grabbed something from the 'bargain bin' you might end up with one of these products. Since it's been opened it can't be resold as new, but buy a bargain bin item that doesn't turn out to be the real deal and you could have a hell of a time returning it or prove you weren't the one that switched it.
I wonder if the grandparent would change his tune if he buys a new video card only to get a $5 trident PCI card and then can't return it on grounds that the store accuses him of switching merchandise...
Some people are immoral, and in some cases not worthy of friendship. Often enough, they don't even see the wrong in their actions when confronted. I had a GF (now an ex), who was not in any way hurting for money, who would pull the tabs/etc off water bottles and fill them as a "refill" rather than paying the extra buck or two. Now is she less guilty because it's a buck, or worse because it's a freakin' dollar that was in no way a hardship for her to pay. Certainly these type of things dropped my respect for her, and probably led to the downfall of the relationship.
Some people have to learn the hard way, if dude's friend in the original post was under the age of majority then he's probably doing fine now without a record, but maybe the scare at least gave him a dose of reality in that it's not just when "the other guy" commits fraud that it is illegal.
It's the attitude that "it's not my problem until it bites me in the ass someday" that makes me sick. Take into account that it was probably a very hard decision to turn in a friend, and certainly not one done without a good deal of thought. I'm not sure if I could do something like this, not because I think it was wrong to turn in the friend, but because it takes a lot of guts to do.
I hope he stomps your teeth in. I hope he firebombs your house. I hope he kills your dog. You deserve worse, narc.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
My point? Following law because it's the law is stupid. Do what is right. Narcing a friend out in face of a faceless corporation is less human than a robot.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The average american breaks 12 laws a day. Maybe we should turn YOU in?
You ever speed? What if I could buy a radar-gun and turn in speeders? Could I follow you, then wait until you go 50.01 in a 50MPH zone and get a ticket sent to you? If I was your friend and did this, would you think I'm being a good friend?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
It is human nature to assume that one's own beliefs are morally superior and "more correct" than others', so I accept that half of you will reject my opinions as just another morally misguided idiot's ranting. You had the choice to choose between the health of your friend and the health of a retail store. I, personally, would hold the saftey of an individual human (i.e., staying out of jail, staying alive, etc.) over the safety of a corporation (i.e., maintaining a profitable business) any day. Your friend will not improve because of your actions. He will only learn to become more cynical and cautious towards other people. Next time, he'll know to keep his mouth shut. If you wanted to change his behavior, the more effective route would have been to explain your views to him in a rational manner.
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I'm not talking about turning people in for their opinions. I'm talking about turning people in for having purposefully done something wrong, for having given no thought to anyone but themselves. It's a very different matter.
And of course from the point of view of McCarthy and the Stalinists, all the people they persecuted had purposefully done something selfish and wrong. For a less Godwinish example, lets take drug use. Say you find your son/kid brother/cousin using heroin. Now, what's the better thing to do - turn him into the cops so he goes to jail, or drag him off to treatment? My point is that if we want to help our friends when they make stupid mistakes, simply turning them in to law enforcement behind their backs is poor "help" next to taking a personal interest in helping them back on their feet.
Well, mister "someone should do something about it, just not me", care to enlighten us as to what should he have done?
Hm, looks like I need to repeat myself, with a few slight modifications:
Why do you say that as if someone has EVER SAID ANYTHING LIKE THIS! Here's a hint: no one has ever said "someone should do something about it, just not me", so stop using that straw man argument. Please.
Now in less flambaity tones, sure the guy should have done something about his friend stealing a video card. But the right thing to do was to try and talk some sense into him, not break off all contact and turn him behind his back.
Whats with the whole "not your business" thing?
/. posters seem to think it's ok as long as you don't get caught and you should never have to answer for crimes committed that you get away with.
If I see someone drive off from the gas pump and happen to notice the license plate, I should not give it to the store when they ask if anyone saw it because "it's not my business"?
Should I not report a robbery in progress across the street because "it's not my business"?
If someone is being assaulted do you just walk on by because "it's not your business"?
If I catch wind someone is spiking drinks to rape someone do you just go on because "it's not your business"?
Sorry to make this sound a little like "when did you stop beating your wife" but it seams a large number of
What level of illegal activity actually becomes your business? Only when it directly affects you?
I bet you would be singing a different tune had you gone into the store that video card was returned to, bought it thinking it was a $450 video card and got instead the low end POS he put in. Imagine you did that and when you came back claiming the product in the box was not the product that was supposed to be in the box, I bet the store would say you switched the item to steal it from them.
All the people (mostly seem to be grade schoolers and high schoolers who think they have all the answers) denouncing this person for reporting a crime need a reality check. Maybe if they spend a few years with people trying to scam them every way possible all day long they might wake up.
I do agree with some of the posters who say he should have (I don't remember him saying if he did or not) talked to the guy first and given him a chance to come clean himself, but from my experiences as and with a teenager, nothing would have come from it and the end result would have been the same.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
So if I obey the law about not killing people, but I find out some guy I know is a killer, it's "uncool" to turn the guy in? am I being a mini Hitler (nice Godwin) because I was so uncool as to judge someone for not following the same laws I do?
Frankly I would welcome automatic ticketing of speed violations, bet you dont have the balls to put yourself up against that level of enforcement. If I ever have a need for speed, it's because I'm in an ambulance and they are allowed to.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Murder is not theft. There are degrees of difference in everything. Morality is not black and white. It is shades of grey. If you can only see 0s and 1s, as you certainly seem to, then you are as unfeeling as a machine. And if you agree with turning them in for screwing a corporation that has definitely screwed others for more, you basically ARE a machine.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
It took me a few re-reads to clear out the few insults I dished back, too bad you couldn't be civil enough to do the same in your posting.
You think a corporation (even with overpaid execs) does not contain people, be they managers or lowly workers?
Are the investors not people?
How does this not do harm to people?
Corporations like Enron and Worldcom are not faceless entities, there are real people behind the fraud they committed and they screwed a lot of people, that does not give you the right to screw your local power company on your electric usage.
By pulling the shit you claim is justified in your special self centered case, you do not hurt the people who have harmed others, you are hurting the innocent who are just trying to live most of the time. If everyone does it to the company who screwed anyone who is in the wrong now (seeing as a company can only screw so many people and there are far more people able to screw the company)?
Sure murder is not theft, air is not water. Both are illegal and the other two are elements. Care to explain how the theft in question is ever outside of the black side of the shades of grey or white?
You seem to be one of those young "Screw everyone I got mine" types from what I see, and more power to you, just remember that you get what you give.
Can you explain how I am supposedly responsible for ambulances not being allowed to speed?
Ambulances can exceed the speed limit, this is a fact, By how much is set from state to stat as far as I can tell. I notice you dodge the fact and go off on some tangent about manslaughter due to accidents (this has happened) but is as useful a fact as they come in various colors including red white, yellow, and blue. They certainly do not always speed and plenty of time transport non critical patients at normal speeds without L&S (Lights and Sirens). When a patient is critical or the hospital they need to get said critical patient to is far away (due to the type of injury) they can and will use L&S and exceed the posted limit and there are laws defining the rules for all this. Do you get up every day looking to be this wrong or do you go to classes for it?
No one is claiming morality is black or white (wow your powers of claravoiance must win you a lot of poker games), but buying a product and then putting a lesser or broken out of warranty product in the box and returning it is THEFT no matter how you slice it and not in any way ever in a grey area. If your precious PS2 dies after warranty ends you need to take SONY to task for making a shit product that does not last. Committing that level of fraud can never be justified that way.
You don't know who has screwed who for more or when. Frankly the best way to live is not to screw people, but it looks thats way to far above your level of comprehension. I'm glad you are such a machine (to use your words) you can never feel anything about all the people you screw in getting your selfish gratification at the expense others.
I take my initial statement back. You are a tool. You wouldn't know slack if it fell on you. I like you high horse "I know you and can analyze your entire existence from my made up assumption based on what I think I know about you" thing, I hope that works out well for you also.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Screwing a corp out of $400 does not screw any individual out of $400. Consider that corporations have built-in the fact that they suffer "shrinkage" (theft) and make a profit nonetheless. I do not believe stealing $400 from a company even takes as much as a penny out of any individual investor's pocket in the long run. IT'S NOT THE FUCKING SAME AS TAKING $400 FROM A PERSON. Would you turn in your mother for stealing a penny? THERE ARE DEGREES. Sit there in denial if you want.
$400 makes zero/negligible difference in the long-term investment of a company. All corporations will eventually gladly harm people if they can make a profit. The only ones who don't are those who go bankrupt before they get the chance. Corporations are not people, but have more rights than people. Personally, I'd rather screw the government out of $400 since they take my tax dollars and use it to kill people and put non-violent offenders in jail, but that's another discussion entirely.
"Care to explain how the theft in question is ever outside of the black side of the shades of grey or white?"
Are you serious? Or do you lack an imagination? Gee, let me see...stealing bread for your hungry family. Yea, that wasn't hard. I think an 8-year-old could probably have come up with that. Or how about stopping terrorism? We freeze the assets of organizations believed to finance terrorism. Sometimes a government takes the assets completely and assimilates it into it's own, in the name of stopping terrorism. Is stopping terrorism morally wrong too? ("You don't hate children, do you?")
"(wow your powers of claravoiance must win you a lot of poker games)", actually, I win or break even in any 5-8 person texas holdem match. I have not lost this decade (I don't play often and win nonetheless).
"If your precious PS2 dies after warranty ends you need to take SONY to task for making a shit product that does not last." :) But anyway, I agree with you completely. That was not the issue. The issue was turning in your friend and ruinig his life. If your friend steals $400, how is it just to do something that will deprive him of $1,000,000 over the course of his life? ($50K/yr white-collar job for 20 years that he can't get with his criminal record.) Would you punch your mom in the face for stealing a penny? DIFFERENCES IN DEGREES. GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS.
Actually, Sony wont repair modded PS2s.
"Frankly the best way to live is not to screw people."
Agreed. Live and let live. But screwing your friend out of his life because he screwed faceless investors out of less than a penny is not commiserate. If you screw your friend 100X harder than he screwed someone else, YOU ARE THE REAL CRIMINAL. An enemy of friendship, trust, and human compassion.
"I like you high horse 'I know you and can analyze your entire existence from my made up assumption based on what I think I know about you' thing, I hope that works out well for you also."
It does. It makes flame wars immensely more fun. Nothing riles someone like hitting close to the truth, or projecting the image that you think you are hitting close to your truth. I don't really care if what I said about you is true or not. The fact that you got riled over it feeds my emotional vampirism and makes me thrive.
"You wouldn't know slack if it fell on you."
That's actually the funniest statement in your posting. If you knew me... You'd know I'm the person who has the most, for the least. But no point in going into any detail; I'm perfect happy knowing that i have a VERY slackful existence... One of my goals.
"It took me a few re-reads to clear out the few insults I dished back, too bad you couldn't be civil enough to do the same in your posting."
Lifes too short to not insult assholes.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Stealing $400 is not the same as stealing a penny, there are degrees to these things as you said.
Notice I said the theft in question, not some theoretical bread for staving people theft. The specific act in question. Maybe if you were not so busy flying off the handle, with the flaming and the assumptions and wild assertions (glaven) you would not have missed that and half of this would not be necessary.
Stealing a $400 video card for playing games never (well I suppose a starving family could steal a card for their kid to play in a tournament he breaks into and wins could) ever puts bread on a family table so it isn't the same. It also wont stop terrorism or AIDS. How hard is it for you to read and understand? We are not talking a penny or bread for starving people or stopping terrorism. It's theft for personal gratification, not the greater good or whatever you think helps people in need (besides those in "need" of $450 luxury items).
The kids life was not ruined. Sure he should have bitched him out, insisted he own up and give the money back or get busted. He was under age and from what the poster said received a "slap on the wrist" probably community service and not much else as I am sure the money was long gone. This did not result in a felony(according to the poster), jail time, and he will have no criminal record so he isn't going to miss out on his chance to earn a million dollars (I think he should set his sights higher then that).
Sure differences in degrees, but you seem to fail to grasp the actual degree of what went on. For instance his life has not been ruined unlike your assertions to that end.
You are quite hung up on earning lots of money in corporate jobs for someone who is so anti-corporation.
Again he isn't screwed out of his life, he didn't go to jail, have something put on some permanent record or get killed. Again how exactly was this persons life ruined?
Is it compassionate to let someone turn into a criminal and as an adult later end up getting caught in a felony offense that does ruin ones life?
Is it friendship to let friends self destruct? I don't know if he did but he should have seriously talked to him and tried to get him to see the illegality of his action.
Is it compassionate to let someone commit a crime and watch as someone else suffers from his benefit? By this I mean whoever bout the low grade card he put in the box, whoever bought that will probably be blamed for the product substitution. If you walked into the store and bought said video card and got home, found it to be not the product that is supposed to be in the box, would you be thinking "Awesome someone screwed Best Buy and I wasted money and gas to get this old VGA card!". If best buy claimed you switched the product when you tried to return it, and you were out $450 would you be alright with it?
See it's not just that he screwed some faceless corporation and investors. It would appear you plan on never having any retirement savings, investments, or anything later in life, again I hope that works out for you.
He screwed another human being who might have been saving up all year for an upgrade. Not some big money hungry corporation who won't notice it (it's always felt by the people lower int he company). Think of the Children! (you did mention them) Imagine if this had been purchased as a gift for someone. Yeah lot of joy spread there.
Thats why it's better not to life life as a contest to screw as many people as possible, because most of the time you think you are screwing some big faceless (so you don't have to worry about conscience or morals) company, you also are screwing one or more "real people" who are just like you, but not raving assholes.
The funny thing about the whole screwing everyone mindset you are praising is that it's the same one the corporate evil "subhumans" have, and used the same way. It does no good or justice, only occasionally vengeance and it does tend to hit bystanders who did nothing to you. But I guess as
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.